Cinnamon and Lemon
by willshakespeare-immortalbard
Summary: When a mysterious person from Palamedes' past resurfaces, the Saracen Knight is yanked into a journey to rescue Will Shakespeare, his best friend. Can he make it in time? T for character deaths/suicide. NOW WITH REWRITE ADDED: I have rewritten this story. In order to comply with FF guidelines, I have added in onto the existing story-to read the rewrite, start at chapter 16.
1. Chapter 1

Cinnamon & Lemon

A Nicholas Flamel fan fiction

2/20/2011

"All of my memories keep you near;

In silent moments, imagine you'd be here.

All of my memories keep you near;

The silent whispers;

The silent tears..."

-Within Temptation, _Memories_

*Prologue*

The foreign smell of cloves filled the air, and the warm green glow emanating from his hands shimmered and solidified, forming a long, deadly sword. Its sharp blade reflected his dark face, with its tear stains; his blood-shot eyes, dark pools of oil—_just like what Will used on his cars_—filled with pain and sorrow; the lines that stress and lack of sleep has etched onto his visage.

His hands shook, and for an instant his heart quailed. Fear of what his resolution entailed made him shudder. But he immediately banished it. He had to do this.

Three weeks. It had been three long weeks since it had happened.

_Cinnamon and lemon..._

Each night he relived that moment.

_Red and yellow..._

Every day he drowned in sorrow.

_"I'm sorry..."_

Three long weeks. Now he had finally conquered the indecision he had quarreled with so strongly. Now he was ready.

_"We'll see each other again someday. I promise."_

_Cinnamon and lemon..._

_"I'm sorry."_

_Red and yellow..._

_"NO!"_

_Cinnamon and lemon..._

He lowered the mental barrier that had warded off the phantoms for the past weeks. He let it fall, let it crumble. He let the memories, good and bad, wash over him. They poured out in a wave that engulfed him, blotting out the dark room, with its carefully locked door. He let the memories claim him, let them numb his weary senses.

_"NO!"_

_Red and yellow..._

_Cinnamon and lemon..._

*Chapter One*

Thunder made the windows rattle. Dark clouds covered the sky, blanketing the world in darkness. Sharp seams of lightning zigzagged across the horizon, ripping gashes in the black clouds like claws on a curtain. The lights flickered and died, leaving the room in darkness.

"My word." A match scraped, and with a hiss, the flame flared into life, casting an eerie red glow about the room, illuminating the two couches, the black, lifeless screens of the computers. "We just lost power, I'd say."

Palamedes laughed, and his deep voice with its Babylonian accent rumbled through the room. "Yes, Will, state the obvious."

Will shook his head. "You needn't be so rude." His voice was sharp and clipped, never slurring a word. The long vowels of the English were present in his speech.

A candle sputtered as the flame made connection with the just cut wick. The dancing tongues of fire sent shadows scattering across the walls. They looked like long fingers, outstretched, searching. Palamedes watched the shadows as they crawled along the shabby walls. He remembered with a pang how the fingers had used to inch their way down the metal walls of the junkyard. He sighed, closing his eyes to try to block out the painful memories—memories of fire, of the baying of hounds, and the childish voice of an Archon.

Gabriel whined, sensing the negative flow of Palamedes' thoughts. He looked up, his red eyes frightening in the dim light.

"What are you thinking about?' Will asked. He reached down absent-mindedly to stroke Gabriel's ears.

"Nothing. Just...nothing."

"It looks scarier here," Will said. "In the junkyard, it had more of a mysterious air. But here, here it just looks wrong. Like someone trying to find you."

Palamedes nodded. Will was right. In the metal shack that had been their home for so long, the fingers had not been so menacing. They had left an enigma behind them, a question. Where were they going? What were they looking for? Here, in the dingy apartment, there was no question of what the fingers were looking for. They were looking for him. Palamedes. Even more horrid memories came back, these of dark eyes and blood red lips, of slim, dainty fingers that killed without mercy, of the spicy smell of cinnamon.

A small burst of yellow light coincided with the lightning's purple flash. Palamedes looked up.

"What are you doing?"

Will smiled, the bright yellow of his aura dancing across his face, echoing itself in his washed-out blue eyes.

"Practicing." Will sent another pool of lemon-scented magic dripping to the stain on the floor that had been there as long as they had. It shimmered, and disappeared. "Finally," Will sighed. "I was beginning to think I would never get rid of it."

Gabriel lapped at the yellow residue with his forked tongue.

Gabriel was the only Torc Madra they had kept. The others, at least those who had not been lost in the battle with the Archon, had been chased away by Palamedes. They were sufficient animals. They would fend. Palamedes had fought for the ability to keep Gabriel. Will was very attached to Gabriel. Only a promise of the dog's silence and house-training had managed to calm the hyperventilating manager.

"Do you miss the junkyard?" Palamedes asked. He hated how he sounded, lost and unhappy, like a child. But he couldn't help it. The junkyard had been his creation, his idea. To lose it, for Flamel of all people, had been a sore blow.

"Of course," Will said, not looking up. "I think of it all the time. I miss it." He sighed.

"You know, Palamedes, we can—we _will_—rebuild sometime. Perhaps not there, but, sometime, we'll be able to rebuild it." He sighed, the sound of his exhalation whistling through the room. "Do you feel like dinner?"

"Yes. Do we have steak?"

Will smiled. "Yes, we do. We're on the same page, you and I."

They both laughed. Gabriel barked joyfully.

"No, hush, Gabriel," Palamedes shushed him. "Remember, you can't be loud."

The hound fell silent immediately. Will and Palamedes laughed again, though not as loud, and with less abandon than they had a few moments before. The need to silence Gabriel had reminded them of the loss of their home, and a part of their freedom along with it.

A cold blast of air swept over them as Will opened the freezer.

"Close the door," Palamedes said. "It's cold!"

"Wait a second. Patience is a virtue," Will muttered as he dug around. Palamedes could hear him talking to himself as he searched.

"Green beans...frozen, ugh...fries, ice cream...aha!" He surfaced with a package of steak, and tossed it triumphantly on the counter, along with a pack of frozen green beans.

"Green beans and steak?" Palamedes asked.

"No, just steak. These," Will held up the frozen produce, "I am throwing away. Who bought these anyway?"

"I did."

"Gross." Will chucked the green beans and started making steak. "This isn't going to be ready until about midnight. Perhaps we should get a snack."

"Should I run and get pizza?" Palamedes said.

"Mmm...Pizza," Will laughed. "That sounds good."

Palamedes heaved himself out of his chair and grabbed his coat. "I will return, with several large pepperoni pizzas and a couple liters of soda."

He closed the door behind him, and he could hear Will chortling all the way down the hall.

"I heard your dog."

The manager was a small man, but he had a way of getting in your face. Palamedes staggered backwards, trying to avoid running him over.

"Yes, I'm sorry about that. He got a little wound up."

The manager stepped forward, standing on tiptoe in an attempt to come face to face with the tall knight.

"You know what I told you. If he's loud, he'll have to go."

"I know," Palamedes said. "I'm very sorry, sir, about the inconvenience this must cause you. But the dog means a lot to my roommate. We are very grateful for your kindness in this matter."

Palamedes hated groveling, but he couldn't ask Will to get rid of Gabriel. Saying good-bye to the other Torc Madra had been hard enough for the English immortal. Getting rid of Gabriel would crush him. And they couldn't move again. Palamedes was sick of moving. He had refrained from buying a house, as he hoped to rebuild sooner rather than later.

"...kindness, along with my patience, is running rather thin," the manager was saying. He had apparently continued talking while Palamedes had been thinking.

"Yes, I'm very sorry. Very. If you could please excuse me."

"Don't forget your rent!"

"It's upstairs. I was going to turn it in tomorrow, but my roommate is still upstairs if you feel the need to collect it now."

"Very well. Keep that mutt under control, you hear me?"

It took all of Palamedes' control to quell the anger that rose in him at the man's belligerent tone. He hated being scolded, especially by his small manager. But he kept his cool and finally escaped into the night air.

It was a relatively short walk to the parking complex, and Palamedes welcomed the exercise. His job as a cabbie didn't really allow for stretching. Will always got a laugh out of Palamedes' only slightly exaggerated hobble at the end of the day, though he never failed to have a heat pack on hand.

Passers-by stared at Palamedes. Even though the sight of him walking to his cab at all sorts of hours had, over the past months, become a familiar sight, his height and muscle stilled awed them.

The parking complex was empty. Pretty much everyone who used it was either gone or in their apartment. Palamedes slipped into the black cab. The motor roared to life. He smiled. It had been Will's idea to put a monster truck motor in the cab. He had thought it funny, and Palamedes did too, though the noise had provided some problems with their manager. Palamedes had been putting off telling Will the manager's verdict on the poor vehicle.

Poor Will. The manager was hard on both of them, but he had, if not fear, at least a nagging respect for Palamedes that kept him from going overboard. That did not, unfortunately, extend to Will, who was forced to put up with their manager's harsh ways much more than Palamedes. Will had taken to hiding when the manager marched up the stairs to chew them out for some offence or other.

A pothole made the car jump, and Palamedes swore violently. "That stupid suspension!" He turned on the radio, and let himself simmer for the rest of the trip.

The pizza store was cramped. Several families with small children had chosen the same night to get pizza, and Palamedes was forced to stand in line. His cell phone rang while he was tapping his foot in impatience.

"Hello?"

"I just got plagued about the rent." Will sounded cross.

"I'm sorry. He stopped me to rant about the dog."

Will sighed. "We don't have to get rid of him, do we?"

"No. I managed to ward that off. But the car motor has to be fixed. He doesn't like the monster truck effect."

"Oh, yes, he told me that." Will's bad humor evaporated at the apparently pleasant memory of the manager's protest. "He turned red while making it very clear to me that the motor would have to go. Well, he actually told me that the car would have to go, but I assured him that it was merely a motor issue. So, you almost home?"

"No. I'm standing in line, waiting to order the pizza. How's the steak?'

"Marinating.'

"What kind of marinade? Lemon?"

"Of course. No real work involved in that recipe."

The cashier cleared his throat. Palamedes realized that the line was gone, and it was now his turn.

"My turn," he told Will. It should only be about ten more minutes."

"Alright. Ta ta!"

Palamedes hung up.

"Two...no, three large pepperoni pizzas please, and two liters of Mountain Dew."

The cashier nodded, and counted up the total.

When Palamedes arrived, wet, but bearing their snack, he found Will in a sour mood.

"Guess who came back?" he asked grumpily, in answer to Palamedes' questioning look.

"Mr. Manager?"

"Yes." Will threw himself onto the couch. "He came back in order to rant for absolutely no reason." He slid down the couch, covering his face with his hands. "I can't take this."

"I know," Palamedes said soothingly, trying to smooth Will's ruffled feathers. "Here, look, I got pizza and mountain dew."

"Mountain dew?" Will snorted. "We'll never sleep!"


	2. Chapter 2

*Chapter Two*

Despite his claims of sleeplessness, and his three cups of soda, Will fell asleep not long after one in the morning, content after a good meal and part of a stupid comedy. Palamedes laughed softly as he tossed a blanket over his sleeping roommate. Then he grabbed the soda bottle and poured himself another cup.

He was trying to avoid the nightmares.

Centuries ago he had used to toss and turn at night, plagued by terrorizing dreams that left him in a cold sweat. Years and years of practice had eventually sufficed to, if not eliminate them, at least keep them at bay. But now the nightmares that had lurked in the backdrop of his dreams for so long burst forth. Once again he woke in the middle of the night, barely managing to stifle the cries that rose to his lips. Every night now, he ended up retreating to one of the unused bedrooms (both Will and Palamedes preferred to sleep on the couch), where he would pace, covering the room in a few easy strides before turning to go the other way. Gabriel would follow him, and, lying in the doorway, would watch him with all too human eyes. He never told Will—he understood that Palamedes didn't want Will involved.

Palamedes had been avoiding sleep for nearly a week, ever since the nightmares had escalated. Cups of soda were ceasing to work.

Will's deep breathing was infectious, and Palamedes soon found his eyelids growing heavy. He fought against the growing tide of sleep. But it was hopeless. Soon his vision grew dark, and he slipped into the dungeon of his mind.

_Smoke and ash block his vision. His eyes water and he blinks rapidly to rid them of the tears. The heat is overpowering, stronger than any sedative. He slows. The break in his leg sends shocks of agonizing pain through his whole body. His face bleeds from the scrapes that gash along either side of his face—three long tears ripping across his dark skin. _

_Cinnamon assaults his nostrils, the spicy smell making him cough._

_"YOU!" An enraged scream. "You'll pay, Palamedes! You will!"_

_He runs faster as the fire suddenly flares up, racing after him with supernatural speed and accuracy. It licks at his heels, blistering his ankles. He winces as another jolt of pain runs through him. _

_The gate looms ahead, the dark metal already melting from the heat. Outside, a flicker of light proclaims the real world. The world untouched by the failing Shadowrealm. _

_The last thing he hears as he stumbles through to safety is her frenzied alto, cursing him, threatening him, vowing her revenge._

_"You'll pay! I'll kill you! I'll—"_

"Palamedes! Palamedes!"

A pillow smacked Palamedes in the face.

"Ouch..." he muttered, swatting at it. He made connection with something metal, and Will gave a shriek.

"My glasses!"

Palamedes opened his eyes. Will was replacing his battered glasses. He looked at Palamedes, his wrung-out eyes full of concern.

"You were screaming."

"I-I was?" Palamedes felt his heart sink.

"Yes." Will replaced the pillow in the form of tossing it into the chair where it belonged, and then sat down on the couch by Palamedes. "You were yelling about killing someone."

Great. He had been screaming her words out to the world.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

No! He didn't want to talk about it. Palamedes had been very careful about his friendship with Will. They had been friends for three hundred years, and Palamedes had never once mentioned his past, mentioned _her_. He had a child-like belief that if he kept Will away from her, than she couldn't hurt him. If Will didn't know who she was, didn't know she existed, than she didn't know anything about Will. If Will was kept in the dark, she couldn't hurt him.

Palamedes shook his head.

"Well, I think you should," Will said. "I think it might help you."

"No, Will. It won't help. I'll be fine."

Will sat in silence for a moment, watching Palamedes. He sighed and bit his lip, apparently thinking.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Alright, then." Will got to his feet and went to the fridge. "Leftovers?"

Wonderful Will. If you refused to say something, he didn't push it more than once or twice. He just stopped. Palamedes smiled, grateful for Will's presence, even if he didn't dare tell Will any of his fears. Just having Will there made the day a little brighter.

The manager came up soon after breakfast to talk about the rent.

"I'm taking a nap," Will said hastily as soon as the manager knocked, grabbing a pillow and a blanket and disappearing in to the bedroom. The door closed seconds before the manager came in, uninvited.

"Is there a problem?" Palamedes rumbled. He wasn't in the mood to discuss their shortcomings with his manager.

"Yes. There is. Why, may I ask, where you screaming death threats in the early hours of the morning?"

"A nightmare. I'm sorry if I disturbed you and others. It won't happen again."

"It had better not. I've had too much trouble with you two. If you can't be quiet and peaceful, you'll have to leave. Hear me?"

"Yes."

"That was an eviction warning, in case you didn't catch it."

"I know. I'm sorry. We'll do better."

"You had better. Good day." The manager stalked out the apartment, closing the door behind him.

"Is he gone?" Will asked, peering around the corner.

"Yes. We have an eviction warning."

"I heard." Will crossed the room to the kitchen, where he starting washing the dishes. "I wish he would just go away. Leave us alone. What does it matter if you had a nightmare? It wasn't terribly loud."

"I woke you, Will," Palamedes said. "And I've seen you sleep through thunderstorms, battles, anything. Don't tell me it wasn't loud."

"Well, you were having a nightmare! You were in a form of distress!" Will said heatedly. He banged a pan around in the sink, before commenting acidly, "Oh, wait, I forgot, we have to be very silent. No banging, yelling, laughing, or barking."

Palamedes smiled. Will was a naturally mild person, but he could flare up very easily, as Palamedes had learned over the years. Apparently their manager hadn't caught on yet, as he insisted on feeding the coals to Will's fire. It was surprising that Will hadn't inflicted some nasty fungus on him yet.

"You have to drive the cab, don't you?" Will switched the subject quickly, suddenly turning to face Palamedes.

"Yes. I'll go in just a second."

"I'm not trying to get rid of you, I just...oh; I wish I could just get out."

Palamedes went over to Will and clapped the smaller man on the shoulder. "Just bear with it. Things will sort out, hopefully."

Will nodded unhappily.

Palamedes grabbed his coat. "I'll be out really late. I have to work some extra hours due to my absence a few months ago."

"Alright. Do you want me to wait for dinner for you?"

"Don't bother. Unless you want to, of course."

Will nodded again, this time with more vigor. "I'll wait."

Palamedes got back even later than he had meant to. His clock read nearly one in the morning by the time he pulled his car into the parking complex. It was raining again, though not nearly as strongly as the night before. Last night's rain had been the setting for a fight, a murder. This rain was a slow, sorrowful patter, like tears falling on pavement. It fell softly, without thunder or lightning. It just fell, dripping down walls and windows with silent persistency.

The halls were dark. No one stirred behind the thick doors. The only sound was the dull thud of his boots against the carpeted floor.

1...2...3...

Palamedes counted the floors impatiently, cursing their fifth floor room and the slow elevators. He had complained once or twice, but nothing had been done, and the fear of eviction had kept him from complaining more.

4...5...

The doors slid open, revealing the darkened fifth floor hall. Very few people lived on the fifth floor. It was one of the reasons Palamedes and Will hadn't objected to being placed there.

_"It's worth the walk, to have some peace and quiet."_

Will had loved it. He hated the noise and bustle of the world. That was why he rarely ventured forth. Palamedes didn't mind either. He agreed with Will, and it was only his job that kept him from hiding. He kept his job because he hated the idea of living off an ever decreasing bank account. It made him feel insecure, like he could lose his way of living any moment. His job helped to keep him floating above his expenses, though only a little.

Palamedes stepped out of the elevator, and felt his heart stop.

Books and other objects lay scattered across the hall. The shattered remains of a wooden bookcase were spread out, jagged edges sawing eerie silhouettes into the darkness.

Palamedes advanced, counting the doors, trying to figure out which apartment had been so ravaged.

500...501...502...503...504...

_"505! Palamedes, you'll never have to worry about forgetting the number. 505...the same backwards as forwards!"_

The door of apartment 505 hung swinging on its hinges.

"Will?" His deep voice rumbled throughout the dark room. His sharp eyes could make out details. They made him sick.

The two leather couches were overturned and slashed to bits, their fillings scattered throughout the room. DVDs were everywhere, looking like they had been thrown about. One of the windows was shattered. The glass lay sparkling on the floor.

"Will?" Silence. Deep, echoing silence. A DVD crunched beneath his foot as he stepped forward.

His heart was thumping in his chest, his breath coming in short bursts. Where was Will?

He moved on into the apartment, searching each room, calling Will's name, hoping to find him.

The unused bedroom (they both slept on the couches) was a mess. There was no bed, just boxes of things they hadn't unpacked. Those boxes had been slit open. Their contents were spilled over the floor. Palamedes caught sight of a dictionary. Some of the pages were ripped from the book, and they fluttered slightly in the cold breeze that swept in from the window, also broken. Rain stained the carpet, turning it dark. The wet pool looked like blood in the darkness. Perhaps it was. Palamedes shoved the thought aside, and went to search the bathroom.

What could be torn apart in the bathroom had been. The shower curtain was ripped practically in half, and the contents of the medicine cabinet had been scattered everywhere. One of the pipes was broken, and a steady stream of water was issuing onto the cold tile.

When Palamedes returned to the living room, with its side kitchen, he found Gabriel.

The Torc Madra was lying near the ruined couches, in a pool of blood. Gabriel didn't move when Palamedes stroked his fur, though he whined softly. Palamedes patted the hound, and looked around. Will was nowhere to be found.

Rising, Palamedes entered the kitchen. Pots and pans littered the floor. Spices had been emptied from their bottles. They reeked, filling the kitchen with their contradictory scents. The refrigerator and the freezer had both been left open, their contents spilling across the floor.

Palamedes tripped on the remains of the table. Someone had chopped into it with something sharp. He tried not to think of what weapon had been used.

"Will?" he called once more. His voice was shaky. "Will?"

He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, trying to pull himself together. And he smelled it. Cinnamon. It was barely noticeable beneath the heady scents of the other spices, but it was there. He spun around, searching the kitchen for the source. He found it lying on the surprising clean counter. A space had been cleared amidst all the ruin, and there, all alone, was a bottle of opened cinnamon.

He picked it up with shaking hands. Cinnamon. _Her_.

Another blast of cold air race through the room, and a piece of paper floated up, carried by the wind. Palamedes caught it.

He could hear his heart thudding. It rang in his ears, blocking out Gabriel's low whines. He could hardly breathe. A lump was rising in his throat. His chest heaved as he tried to suck in air. Black spots popped in and out of his vision.

_Please. Please, no._

The paper held one line, written in Will's rather messy Edwardian hand.

It took him several tries to read it.

**If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge**

A Shakespeare quote. One of Will's quotes. Time slowed, and Palamedes felt his heart stop.

_"You'll pay! I'll kill you!"_ Her words came back to him, reverberating through his tortured mind. _"You'll pay!"_

Not Will. Anyone. Anyone but Will. Palamedes wanted to scream, but he couldn't find his voice. Not to scream. Not even to cry.

_"You'll pay!"_

He was paying. He was paying dearly.


	3. Chapter 3

*Chapter Three*

The engine sputtered to life as Palamedes revved it. His foot slammed down of the pedal, and he reversed, nearly spinning out of control as he turned.

She had Will. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to make him pay.

He had always thought that she would find him and kill him slowly, torturing him, all the while speaking to him, telling him how much she hated him. He had feared for Will, feared that she would use Will against him. But he had never thought that she would actually take him.

_She had Will._

The rain splattered down on his windshield. He sped on, not bothering to activate the wipers, not caring about his blinkers. Even though the streets were relatively empty, he cursed every car, every driver who got in his way, who made his drive a little longer. He ran lights, made illegal turns, all in a daze. He couldn't think straight, couldn't focus past the burning fire of rage and fear that burned in his breast.

_She had Will._

A pothole in the road made the car jolt. Palamedes fell forward, and realized that he hadn't even bothered to use his seat belt. He didn't fix it. Sliding back into his proper position, he added more force to the gas pedal, pushing the car to its limit. The monster truck engine roared loudly, a constant reminder of Will. Will...

_She had Will._

His hands were shaking, making driving difficult. He felt numb, almost drunk, except for the fact that the warm, fuzzy feeling of joy that all drunken men experienced was absent. All he felt was pain. Pain and fear.

_She had Will._

What would she do to him? Would she torture him? Recollections of her frightening torture devices made him slam on the brakes. The high pitched squeal as his car fought for traction sounded like a scream.

Palamedes buried his face in his hands.

No. She couldn't do that to Will. She couldn't. Not Will.

Oh, not Will.

Car horns blared, reminding Palamedes that he was in the middle of the street. He didn't really care, but he couldn't afford to be arrested. Not with Will in her power.

_She had Will._

Palamedes drove forward again. He felt nausea rising in his throat. Swallowing, he worked it down, refusing to be sick. Refusing to give in to anymore weakness than he already had.

The cab hit another bump. His stomach twisted.

**If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge**

Revenge. She was doing this for revenge. Palamedes crumpled the letter in his large fist. The crackling sound filled the interior of the cab as the paper folded in on itself, blocking out the words, written in Will's handwriting, that were now the only thing he had to follow.

_She had Will._

The question was: where had she taken him? Where? He racked his brain, trying to think. Trying to at least eliminate someplace where she would not take him. But his mind wouldn't work. He couldn't see past the horrific vision of the ravaged apartment.

_She had Will_.

The car rammed in to something. Once again Palamedes jolted out of his seat, falling over the dashboard. His lungs burned. He fought for air, massaging his pained chest, thanking the heavens that the cab didn't have airbags. What had he hit?

He forced the door open, staggering out into the now heavy stream of rain that poured down on the world like a waterfall of tears. The tears he couldn't cry, no matter how much he wanted to.

A closed gate stood before him.

It was sooty, dented in many places by what looked to be clubs. Rusty hinges were slowly falling away, though they had held against the attack of Palamedes' speeding cab. Dirt and oil were embedded in the many scrapes that were pitted in its metal surface. Claw marks, Palamedes told himself. Paw prints marked certain areas where dogs or something worse, had bounded forward, pressing against the gate. The firm structure had seen a battle. Peering at it more closely, Palamedes realized where he was.

He was in the junkyard.

He must have unconsciously headed for his old home. Their old home.

Their old home. It brought back the pain. Not the one in his chest, but the one in his heart.

_She had Will._

_She had Will._

The gates opened with difficulty. They weren't meant to open from the outside. Will had always pushed the button to open them. But Palamedes forced them open, determined to get in. He didn't know what he would find, didn't know what there was to find. But he had to go to the shack. He had to see it again.

Memories of Gabriel flitted through his head as he walked down the narrow path, leaving the car behind him. He had been unable to save the Torc Madra. It hurt, losing the dog. Gabriel had meant so much to Will. Losing him felt like losing Will again. He hated to think of what he would say to Will about Gabriel when he finally found his friend. He would find him. He had to.

"I'm sorry, Will," he whispered, amazed at how forlorn his voice sounded. It was reminiscent of the sound of a child's cry when their world collapsed. In a way, that was what had happened to him. Will was gone, and with him, a large part of Palamedes' world. Everything he cared about had centered around the Bard. It had been that way for centuries, creeping upon him without his noticing. Now he was acutely aware of it.

Slowly, slowly, the junkyard came into view. Nothing had been moved since the night he and Will left. The cars still milled about, unfixed, covered in oil and scratches. The potholes, long abandoned, still exuded the awful smell of things that should have died long ago. The shack stood alone, rusty and dirty, like it had always been, its door hanging slightly.

Flashing quickly through him like a bolt of lightning, he saw the door of the apartment, swinging eerily, providing glimpses of the mess within.

Palamedes shook his head, trying to push the image away. He couldn't think about it. He couldn't.

The floor creaked beneath his shoes as he came in. The shack was dark. Without light it looked like a haunted house. In a way it was. In a way it was haunted. Haunted with memories.

His eyes watered. The whole shack stank of cinnamon. Coughing slightly, blinking away tears that might not have been entirely due to the smell, Palamedes searched for the light. He finally found it, and flipped the switch.

Everything was dusty, though Will had cleaned it before leaving. Will hated mess, something Palamedes had always found funny, as Will never bathed. Before they had left, Will had sent a seeping yellow cloud through the shack, leaving it sparkling and still full of the citrusy smell of lemon.

Sitting on the table, on top of a thick volume, was a bouquet of flowers. Palamedes went up to inspect it.

Bright lemon-colored daffodils made up the bouquet. The cinnamon scent was explained in the bunch of cinnamon sticks that had been buried deep within the flowers. A black ribbon bound up the flowers.

Palamedes lifted the bouquet. Something on the ribbon glinted as it caught the light.

Upon closer inspection, Palamedes found that it was a dog whistle. He recognized it instantly. It was Will's. He had never used it, but whenever the Torc Madra misbehaved he told them that if they didn't stop he would blow it as hard as he could. Sometimes he would raise it to his lips and pretend to blow, though it had never fooled the dogs. It was his favorite toy.

Palamedes put the whistle to his lips and blew. No sound came out. No dogs answered the silent call.

Tears rose unbidden to his eyes. He put the whistle down, and tossed the flowers next to it. What lay beneath took his breath away.

Shakespeare. She had put a volume of Shakespeare beneath the bouquet. His heart twisted as he looked at the picture on the cover.

There were no large glasses, and the clothing was the medieval stuff that hadn't been worn in ages, but it was still him. Will. He looked so stiff, so formal. Nothing like what he was really like. People who looked at that picture could never say they understood what Shakespeare was like. Not from that picture.

Lifting up the book, more memories came flooding back.

_"My word!_" Will's favorite expletive. _"This is heavy! Who, pray tell, is the idiot who wasted his entire life writing this?"_

Proud as he was of his work, and much as he enjoyed quoting himself, Will had never passed up the chance to poke fun at his life's work. He had loved laughing at the _"stiff, lazy speech" _and the _"tiring monologues_".

On the back was a note.

**Page 1616**

Once again, it was Will's handwriting. Once again, it was shaky, holding firm evidence of a trembling hand.

Will had used no commas—he never did—and the number struck fear into his Palamedes' heart.

1616. The year of Shakespeare's supposed death. The date Will had chosen.

_"I don't know. It was a fun date. 1616. So even. I couldn't resist. And besides, I was 52, old enough to die."_

What was she trying to tell him? Was Will dead, or would he die?

He turned to page one-thousand-six-hundred-and-sixteen. A photograph fell out, landing face down on the floor.

This time it was his handwriting that came flying up to meet his eyes.

1977—July?

Beneath it, in Will's hand,

**September**

Palamedes turned the picture over.

He recognized it immediately. It was one that Francis St. Germain had taken over thirty years ago. The quality was bad, but the content of the picture made Palamedes' heart twist in his chest.

In the picture, he was leaning against the cab, his foot dangerously near an oil car. The Torc Madra were gathered around. Will was there too, crouching down by Gabriel, touching his nose to the Torc Madra's wet snout. Both men were laughing.

Francis had taken the picture when they weren't looking. Palamedes smiled, remembering the following snapshots—one of Will covered in car oil that had splattered from the can Palamedes' foot had knocked over, and then Will dumping the remains of the can's contents on Palamedes' head. But the one he was looking at now had always been his favorite. It was special—a family picture, Francis had said.

_"Every family needs a family picture, Palamedes. It goes in the photo album to be savored when times get rough."_

Well, times were tough. And Palamedes was grateful to _her_ for placing the picture in the book. It reminded him of all he stood to lose. It strengthened his resolution not to lose Will. It made him all the more determined to find him.

But why was the picture there? _She_ wasn't the kind of woman to simply put it there to hurt him. Everything she did had a reason. The picture must hold some sort of clue.

He scrutinized it closely, trying to find something that might help him understand. But it was just a picture.

What had he noticed about it? It was about Will. It showed them as a family. It had been taken by Francis.

Francis.

She was leading him to St. Germain.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: This is a friendship story. Just wanted to let everybody know. Many thanks to Trans-Siberian Fan 12, who kindly reviewed and requested more. Here it is, another chapter. **

**Oh, I don't own this, either. Michael Scott does. The only thing I own is Annette. She is purely my invention, albeit very cliched. **

*Chapter Four*

_Knock, knock_.

Palamedes hammered on the door of the newly renovated home of Francis St. Germain and his wife, Jeanne d'Arc. After several minutes, the door opened.

"Palamedes?" Francis asked confusedly. "What are you doing on my doorstep at four in the morning? Not that I'm not glad to see you, but—"

"Where's Will?" Joan cut in, leaning to the side in an attempt to see past the bulky knight. "Is he not with you tonight? Or is he sick?"

"She has him." Palamedes' voice cracked.

"Who?" Joan asked curiously. But Francis paled.

"No..." he breathed. "She-she found you?"

Palamedes nodded. "She found me, and she found how to hurt me."

"You'd better come inside," Joan said, "and explain."

Palamedes still remembered the day Francis had wormed his past from him.

_"Palamedes, why are you frightened of this woman?"_

_"I ruined her life irrevocably. She hates me, and will do anything to get her revenge."_

_"Well, I want to know. I want to know everything."_

_"You can't tell Will."_

_"Why not?"_

_"Because you can't. You must promise."_

Francis had promised, and Palamedes had told him, albeit reluctantly. He had told him everything.

"Who has Will?" Joan asked, sitting down next to Francis.

Palamedes shook his head, unable to mention _her_.

"Someone from his past, Joan," Francis explained.

"Who?"

"The name's not important. What matters is that she's brutal. She won't—" Francis stopped short. But Palamedes finally spoke, finishing his sentence.

"She won't hesitate to kill Will if it will hurt me. And she knows it will."

"The question is," Francis said, "has she already killed him?"

"I don't know. She left this, though."

Palamedes handed Francis the Will's note and the photograph. Francis and Joan looked at both the objects.

"The picture led me to you," Palamedes said. "The note...1616. The year..." his voice broke again.

"The year Shakespeare died," Joan murmured. "Oh, Will. Poor, poor Will."

Francis sighed, his face an open book as waves of pain and horror washed over his features. Palamedes vaguely wondered if that was how he looked.

"How long?" Francis' voice was soft. "How long since you discovered he was missing?"

" 3 hours, probably," Palamedes said. He had to force the words out. "I don't really know. I went mad, you could say, when I figured out what had happened."

Will's voice broke in on the conversation.

"_Hello, Will speaking. I'm not available right now, but I'll contact you whenever I am. Please leave a message including your name, number, and business. Thank you very much. Have a nice day."_

The barking of a dog sounded incessantly in the background. Tears welled in Palamedes' eyes. Will and Gabriel.

Joan bit her lip and put the phone down. "No answer. I'd hope maybe he still had his phone."

They sat in sorrowful silence, Will's happy voice, and Gabriel's frenzied barking, still ringing in their ears, reminding them of the reason they were gathered there.

Francis finally stood.

"Well, I'll help you look. Joan, stay here."

Joan opened her mouth to protest—oh, she was like Will that way—but Francis stopped her.

"Flamel needs you, Joan. You're a much better warrior than I. The twins will profit more from your presence than mine." He bent and kissed her. Palamedes looked away, giving them some privacy.

"Okay," Francis said, "let's go. Will needs us."

Everything exploded before they had a chance to move.

A silver shield glimmered about them, and the strong smell of lavender erased the bitter tang of dust, smoke, and cinnamon.

_Cinnamon_.

Palamedes vaulted to his feet. His awakened senses were blaring, eyes peeling the dirty air for a sign, ears searching for a sound, any sound that he could follow. Cinnamon obscured his nostrils.

There! A flash of red.

Rubble flew out from beneath his feet as he ran after the retreating figure. Francis and Joan would be fine—Joan's shield had done its job. Will was the priority. Will was all that mattered.

_Will._

The name pounded in his ears, matching the erratic beating of his heart as he left the ruins of Francis' home far behind.

_Will_.

_"Will..."_

A low, yet feminine voice cooed the name. The sound echoed through the alleyway.

_"There's still time, Palamedes. Still time...1616...think. 1616..."_

Palamedes fumbled for his sword. His hands shook with rage as he drew it out with a hiss of metal. His mind struggled to discern her voice from the wild ravings of his brain.

_1616...what did she mean?_

He tried to think as he followed her down the wet paving. He saw another glimpse of red, turning into a door. He trailed it, and found himself in a stairway.

_"1616, Palamedes. There's still time._"

Time. Time. 1616.

His feet pounded against the hard metal as he flew upwards, tracing the low tones of her voice.

_"1616..."_

It reverberated around the empty mall.

Palamedes staggered out into the center piazza, scanning the stores and levels for a sign of her. Cinnamon filled the air. The tears in his eyes blurred his vision. He wiped them away.

_"Hurry, Sir Knight. Time waits for no man...1616..."_

"Annette!" he roared, horrified by the brutal tone of his voice.

A laugh.

_"Come and find him, Palamedes. He's still alive, but his clock is ticking."_

Another Shakespeare quote.

"Annette!" Palamedes called again, his sword glinting with a trace of green.

"_1616..."_

A thud shook in his ears, and something flew across the floor, skidding to a halt at Palamedes' feet.

All was silent. She was gone, Palamedes knew. She had left her clue and vanished.

He stooped, plucking the small box from the floor.

A note was pasted to the front, this time in a fancy feminine hand.

**16:16**

Palamedes tore the note off and, opening the box, took out the object.

It was a digital watch, set to military time. The timer was on, set for 4:16 in the afternoon. As Palamedes held it, his finger brushed against a button, and the timer began to count down.

4:16?

A horrified gasp wrenched itself from his lips.

4:16. In military time, 16:16.

He had twelve hours.

_Will_ had twelve hours.


	5. Chapter 5

*Chapter Five*

"_Will..."_

He fell to his knees, his friends name escaping in a ragged whisper.

"_Will..."_

The mall floor morphed beneath him, turning into hard, cold stone. The bitter smell of cinnamon rose overpoweringly on the air.

"'_Make use of time, let not advantage slip...'"_

Her voice. Palamedes' head snapped up. Anger overran his senses, blinding him momentarily as he leapt to his feet. A curse broke loose as he drew his sword.

A soft moan caused the sword to fall useless to the ground as his fingers lost their strength.

"Will!" Palamedes staggered forward, heading for the limp figure that lay so lifelessly on the damp stone. Once again the floor rushed up to meet his knees as he knelt by Will's motionless form.

"Will!"

Will stirred weakly, shifting slightly. He could have been asleep, if not for the obvious signs of torture that marred his features.

Long gashes ran along his face and arms, visible past the rips and tears in his clothing. He was smudged with dirt and blood. His oversized glasses were cracked. Behind them his eyes fluttered, but no more.

"Will..." Palamedes held his friend closely. His fingers found Will's wrist.

A pulse. Small, barely noticeable, but there. For now, that would be enough.

"Palamedes?" Will's voice was raw. Palamedes hated the thought of the screams that had made his speech so hoarse.

Palamedes began to stand, pulling Will to his feet. The Bard slumped, unable to stand.

"Come on, Will," Palamedes muttered. "Let's get you out of here."

A low, soft laugh filled the air.

"_Oh, no, Palamedes. That's not allowed. You have to come find him...remember what your friend so wisely said. 'Make use of time, let not advantage slip.'"_

The air about them began to shimmer, and Palamedes became aware of the fact that sand was falling from the ceiling.

"_The hourglass is emptying, Palamedes."_

Will crumpled, as Palamedes' let go of him.

Palamedes yanked a piece of paper out of his pocket. He scribbled frantically on it, not even looking. While he wrote, he soaked in his surroundings.

_Stone walls. No windows. Filthy, cold, damp. _

The flow of sand lessened. His time was running out. Palamedes glanced down at what he had written.

**He that is thy friend indeed,**

**He will help thee in thy need:**

**If thou sorrow, he will weep;**

**If the wake, he cannot sleep:**

**Thus of every grief of heart**

**He with thee does bear a part.**

**These are certain signs to know**

**Faithful friend from flattering foe.**

He put the paper in Will's hand. The English immortal's fingers tightened slightly around Palamedes'.

Palamedes held Will's hand tightly. He knew her magic—Will would disappear with the rest of her illusion. But he could be there for as little as they had left.

"I'll find you, Will," he whispered. "I won't stop looking."

The Bard did not stir.

The last thing Palamedes was aware of as everything faded was Will's ever dying pulse beating against his finger.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N-I don't own this. Michael Scott owns everything. :(**

**This is a friendship fic.**

**This chapter was posted thanks to the eager review of Trans-Siberian Fan 12, who absolutely hated my cliffhanger of chapter five. Here you go, Trans-Siberian Fan 12! I hope you enjoy.**

**Also, the reference to a certain king was supplied thanks to an idea from Trans-Siberian Fan 12. Thanks again for the idea and the review!**

*Chapter Six*

From the moment that his friend's weak pulse vanished, Palamedes' heart beat followed Will's draining hourglass of time. Every beat was time lost, time gone, a little time taken from Will.

The early light of morning revealed in the rearview mirror a man insane.

He was shaking visibly His dark eyes were pools of anger, sorrow, and confusion as he sought to discover where she had taken Will. His skin was ashen.

_A dungeon._

That was all he had to go on.

_A dungeon._

Palamedes cursed. There were dungeons everywhere. It could be a Shadowrealm. It could be some old abandoned ruin in rural England, Scotland, France, Germany, or any other such place. It could be...

His thoughts were cut off by a searing pain in his hand.

The car swerved off of the road, landing in a ditch where it lay unnoticed in the uninhabited countryside. The air bag activated, filling the small space. Palamedes pushed it aside, cursing again.

His dark green aura was blossoming of its own accord about his massive hand. The warm olive color was tinged with a hot red. Seconds later the spicy scents of cloves and cinnamon filled the air.

"Annette..." he murmured.

His attention was drawn back to his hand as cold metal formed beneath his fingers. A sword shimmered in his hand—not a real one. An illusion, glittering with traces of cinnamon red. He recognized the sword as the one which had, according to the Archon, both ruled and ruined his master's life. The one that he had so foolishly mistaken Clarent for. The one that he had longed to see again, and had, clutched in Dee's gloved hand.

Excalibur. A perfect replica.

The blade, as soon as it was formed, began to glow, and a shaky image appeared.

_A large, round table: dusty, unused, covered in the scratches and marks of goblets and knives long absent. Tall chairs: their cushions old and faded, slowly disintegrating with each passing second. _

_A long, narrow hallway: hung with tapestries long indiscernible. Dirty stones: unwashed, uncared for. Torch brackets: still adorned with dusty, filthy torches that were falling apart without any help from human hands._

_Wet stairs: damp with mildew and sullied water that leaked from cracks in the dilapidated wall. _

_Rusted bars: flaking, leaving a red deposit on the ground that, wet and mushy, could be pass a blood._

_A small dungeon: dark stains on the cracked stone floor. Bloodied chains on the wall: moving nearly imperceptibly in a wind that slunk through the tiny cell. _

_A note: clutched in long fingers. _

_A swift glimpse of firm handwriting. _

_A few lines of Shakespeare._

Will.

She was leading him to Will, who lay in a dungeon in Camelot.

Palamedes had spent too much time by the large table not to recognize it.

Will was in Camelot.

She was leading him to Will.

And Palamedes realized exactly what she was doing.

She was leading him on.

It would have been a welcome thought, if it hadn't been followed by the knowledge that it was only to see Will suffer at her hands.

She had given him twelve hours though. Surely she wouldn't give him a countdown just to lead him there without any effort.

Surely not.

The sword disappeared, and any lingering scents also vanished, eclipsed by the smell of incense.

"It won't be as easy as you think."

The man who stood on the battered hood of the taxicab was as large as Palamedes, though he wore less clothing.

A dirty brown beard hugged the man's chin. His chest was covered in a tattered shirt that, in the watery glow of his aura, seemed to fluctuate between cloth and a lion's skin. He was barefoot.

"I know," was all Palamedes said. He was unperturbed by the man's appearance. He knew who he was. And he knew he was immortal.

"Heard about it," the man said in ancient Greek, stepping off the taxicab as he allowed Palamedes to get out. "Francis called me after his house blew. He said you were following her, and pointed me in the general direction. Ugh. That mall still reeks of cinnamon. I knew then that she had pointed you in a direction. Where, I don't know. But—"

"Camelot." Palamedes' voice was hoarse. "Hercules, she's taken him to Camelot."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N-I don't own. **

**This is a friendship fic.**

*Chapter Seven*

Palamedes collapsed, shaking uncontrollably, burying his face in his hands and leaving the taxicab unfixed. Grease and oil stained his dark skin even darker as the liquids rubbed off his hands. Memories washed over him in staggering waves.

_Will, dirty with the same liquids that dirtied Palamedes' arms._

_Will, bending over a broken car, sending car parts sprawling across the yard, where Gabriel—poor animal—would retrieve them when they were called for._

_Will, slamming the hood shut with a pleased smile on his face._

_Will. _

Hercules finished the work in silence, watching Palamedes with a pitying expression that reminded Palamedes just how miserable he looked.

"You're losing it," Hercules said. "Just losing it. Francis said you were, but I didn't think that was possible. I mean, _you_. I would have argued, but that pretty wife of his nearly kicked me out. Wanted me to go after you."

Good, sweet Joan.

Hercules yanked the knight to his feet, grunting witht the effort. "Let's go. If that countdown you spoke of is as short as you said, then—"

The watch at Palamedes' wrist beeped suddenly, cutting off Hercules' sentence. Both men started.

"That's your old watch," Hercules said. 'It's six in the morning."

Palamedes turned to the other watch, and found that it was blank.

"What?" he muttered, staring at it. As he examined it more closely, his finger hit the button again. And once again, 4:16 hopped out at him.

"4:16?" Hercules thought. "She's giving you a time."

Palamedes nodded.

"Or a date. April 16th."

"Past," Palamedes said. "It's the 20th."

"Or latitude and longitude."

The silence was thick enough to choke on.

"Latitude and longitude..." Palamedes whispered, thinking hard.

Hercules had already yanked a cell phone out of his pocket. He swore.

"No internet!" He turned to Palamedes.

"Guess we know where we've got to get first."

"_Pally?"_

Palamedes didn't even have the strength to protest against the hated nickname.

The young woman pushed long strands of dark hair back from her face, and shifted the heavy tray to her other side, just like she would a child.

"What on earth are you doing here?"

"Internet," Hercules supplied, when Palamedes remained silent.

"Okay. Will you have anything to eat?"

"Lemonade, please, and some steak," Palamedes muttered. "Thanks Aude."

The woman patted him lightly on the shoulder, and moved away. A few moments later, she came back, and slipped into the booth.

"What are you doing here?"

"She has Will."

Just like Francis, Aude (as she had been named) turned pale.

"No..." she breathed.

Hercules laughed roughly. "Well, it seems like everyone knew about her. Except Will."

"I had my reasons," Palamedes snapped, the bitterness of his failure making his heart ache.

"I know. I just...irony...never mind."

Hercules' fingers were typing quickly, and he cursed occasionally when the results failed.

"I need Aether, Aude," Palamedes said. "To get into Camelot."

"Why?"

"It'll give me the power to get past her guards. Do you know anyone who can teach me?"

"Palamedes, you need the other four elements. You don't know any."

"Then I need someone to go with me."

"Oliver."

A young man appeared. His red curls bounced as he checked Hercules' results, and muttered something in old French. "Oliver knew Aether."

"He'd have helped you."

Palamedes hopped to his feet, pounding a fist against the table. "It doesn't matter if he _would have_ helped me! I need help now!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Hercules held up his hands. "I have the results. Camelot is 4 degrees, 16 minutes west. Okay. She was giving you a hint, but you didn't get it. Now, who's Oliver?"

Both young people fell silent. Aude looked down at the table. A look of suffering passed over the young man's face. Palamedes felt for him—he knew that look. He'd been seeing it on his reflection ever since Will had been taken.

"Olivere..." the young man said softly, still in French, "was Aude's brother. He was also—"

Tears choked him, and he turned away.

Aude finished.

"He was also Roland's companion."

Palamedes managed to get Hercules to search Oliver's name on his phone, saving the young couple a sad tale.

'I know someone named Oliver," Hercules said off-handedly, as he searched it. "Works as a tour guide at the _Roncevaux Experience_."

"The what?" Roland asked in confusion.

"Some hammed up show for a long past battle. I don't watch it. Don't have anything to do with it. But Oliver's a great guy."

"Call him," Palamedes said suddenly. "Call him now."

"He'll be sleeping."

"Call him!"

"Okay..."

Hercules dialed a number and put the phone to his ear.

The voice that answered was male, speaking in the same dialect of French that Roland spoke.

"Hercules, I want to sleep. Make it quick."

Roland and Aude paled. Aude buried her face in her hands and cried, and Roland gasped.

"Oliver!"


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N-I don't own this. *sigh***

**Oh, and if my characters seem a lot like Harry Potter bad guys, I'm really sorry. But I love those books, and they have greatly influenced my writing. So I'm sorry for the resemblance...**

**This is a friendship fic. :)**

**Enjoy!**

**willshakespeare-immortalbard**

*Chapter Eight*

Oliver didn't look powerful. He looked bored. And disgusted.

It had taken all of five seconds for Palamedes to realize that Hercules had been kind when he labeled _The Roncevaux Experience_ as hammed up. Actors who had either lost or never found their glory (Palamedes suspected the latter) gave over exaggerated performances that made Palamedes—an actor in years in years gone by—shudder. He could practically hear Will speaking beside him.

"_Well, it's not Shakespeare."_

Oh, Will.

"Hello!" A bright, falsely cheery voice greeted them as the young tour guide pointed at by Hercules as Oliver came up to stand before them.

Dressed in black jeans, a black t-shirt bearing the words _The Roncevaux Experience_ over the silhouette of a knight on a rearing steed, and a black cap with the same emblem, Oliver looked little like a knight, and much less like a white one, such as existed in fairytales.

"Welcome to _The Roncevaux Experience_, the world's only reenactment of the famous battle of Roncevaux Pass." After a swift glance around, he added, "Thanks goodness it's the only one."

"Hey, Oliver," Hercules said loudly, stepping forward. The two men grappled for a moment as Oliver struggled to evade the large arm that Hercules eventually slung about his neck. "Got some people for you to see!"

Oliver's eyes flitted over Palamedes. He gave the knight a warm smile that brought Will to Palamedes' mind again, though he had never really left it. Then his gaze fell on Roland and Aude.

"Aude!"

His sister rushed forward and flung her arms about his neck, sobbing hysterically. Roland stood not far behind her, reluctant to interrupt, but clearly dying to greet his long-missed companion.

After the siblings had had their tears, laughs, and embraces, Oliver turned to Roland.

The second reunion was just as touching, and the tears flowed just as freely, if not more. They switched to French, and the two groups swapped stories in rapid-fire mode, relaying the details of Roland and Aude's marriage, Oliver's various employments, and a few stories that Palamedes' knew were important to them, but that were completely useless in terms of finding or helping Will.

Finally, Oliver turned to Hercules and Palamedes, thanking both profusely. His white teeth showed in a happy smile.

"Hello Palamedes." Oliver's language was a clear as Will's, and just as precise, though he had clearly spent more time in the Americas, as he spoke the language with only a slight French accent. "It's a pleasure to see you again."

"The same, Oliver," Palamedes said hurriedly. "But I need your help with something."

Oliver nodded. "That's what Hercules said. What exactly?"

"Aether. I need you command of it to save my friend."

Oliver's answer was immediate. "Of course. Anything. What do you need me to—oh, thanks very much." He trailed off into other waters as a tall, bearded man came up behind him, handing him a book.

"You forgot this at the hill, Oliver."

Palamedes saw a bit of the picture embossed on the cover, and felt a pang as he recognized Shakespeare. Will.

"Sorry about that. What do you need me to do? As I said, anything. I already owe you one."

"_MOUNTJOY!_" a frenzied "Roland screamed. Oliver winced.

"Get me out of here, and I'll owe you two."

"My word." Oliver whistled. "That's quite a story." He glanced down at his book. "Shakespeare. _William_ _Shakespeare_. Your friend in William Shakespeare." His grey eyes sparkled against his olive toned skin. He took off his cap and ran a hand through his wavy black hair. "My word."

Palamedes winced. It had been centuries since he'd seen Oliver, and he realized now how alike Will and Oliver were. Both had the same basic traits: humor, kindness, a love of books and knowledge, and a fondness of the archaic "my word".

"Will you help me?" he asked.

Oliver nodded fervently. "Yes!" He grinned. "I'll owe you three if your friend will explain why _Hamlet_'s so long. It's killing me."

Palamedes smiled wanly. "Will always considered that one his best." No. He was already speaking in the past tense. He repeated his statement, saying, "Will considers that one his best."

They all looked at him, not in confusion, but pity, though understanding shone in Roland, Aude, and Oliver's eyes. They too had borne with the pain of past tense references to loved ones.

"That's what I've heard," Oliver continued. He stood up from the chair of the café. "Let's get going. Just let me talk to Ganelon for a second."

"Ganelon?" Roland asked sharply as he spun, searching for his stepfather, but Oliver didn't answer. He was already hollering and waving his cap in the air, an action which got, "Respect the merchandise, Knight!" barked at him from the counter. Replacing his cap, Oliver motioned with his hand for someone to come over. The bearded man of earlier detached himself from a group of people who were congratulating him on his performance, and came up, sweating and gasping.

"Yeesh, the fans are going wild."

"Don't see why, as you play the traitor, but whatever floats their boats and keeps them happy."

"That about sums it up. What did you want?"

"Can you ask Marie to fill in for me? Unexpected family issues—I've got to go."

"Ganelon" sighed. "Alright, I'll tell her. But the boss isn't going to be happy."

Oliver laughed. "Well, the day I make him happy will be the day I die, so I'll risk upsetting him once more."

"Ganelon" nodded. "Okay. Good luck with the family. Hope things get better."

"Thanks."

Once "Ganelon" was gone, Oliver turned to them and smiled.

"Alright. Let's go get Shakespeare!"

He hefted his heavy volume in the air, and shouted something in archaic French that Palamedes didn't hear beyond the sudden screaming that filled his ears and brought him falling to his knees.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N-I don't own. **

**_Now_ the characters seem like Harry Potter evlies. :)**

**Friendship fic...**

*Chapter Nine*

"Palamedes!"

He faintly felt hands gripping his shoulders.

"Palamedes!"

In a sudden burst of red light, the scene before Palamedes' eyes changed. Grass and the black canvas of Oliver's tennis shoes turned to stone, and what he saw made him wish that he was dead.

_Will writhed and screamed, in apparent pain, on the cold stone floor. She stood over him, her red aura forming a burning circle about him._

"'_We have scotched the snake, not killed it'," she mused, directing her words at Palamedes. Then she smiled, and turned her eyes towards him._

"_Hurry up."_

"Palamedes!"

A heavy object collided with the crown of Palamedes' head, and he looked up to see Shakespeare retreating as Oliver pulled his book back.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Roland and Hercules were kneeling next to Palamedes, where they had clearly been trying to jolt him from his illusion. Aude was standing by her brother, wringing her hands as she cast nervous glances at the crowd, who, luckily, had not noticed Palamedes' breakdown, as "Roland" was grieving his companion's death in a pathetic, sappy manner.

"Will," he gasped, speaking to himself. He got to his feet, pushing away the helping hands, and strode out of the clearing, the others following.

"Palamedes."

It was Aude. Her chamomile aura flared to life as she gripped his arm. It soothed him, giving him a chance to think.

"We'll find him."

In her dark eyes—so like her brother's—Palamedes saw Will's torture replay, and realized that she too had seen it.

"You saw—?"

"Yes." Her soft voice was sad. "I did. It's a special gift, you could say. Any illusions, I can see. But that's not the point. The point is—"

"Whoa!" Hercules yelled as, with shrieks and curses, the crowd parted, revealing a tall young man, dressed all in black, twirling two twin blades in his gloved hands.

Cloves and incense were the first smells on the air, quickly followed by chamomile, ylang ylang, and coriander as Aude, Oliver, and Roland activated their auras.

"Palamedes. I had the pleasure of briefly meeting your friend," the young man drawled."He wasn't looking too good, but—" he deflected a bolt of sienna colored Aether from Oliver without even looking, "—he'll last a little longer. Until she gets bored."

"Mordred," Palamedes snarled, drawing his sword. "Didn't think I'd see you again."

"Didn't _want_ to see you again," Mordred said casually, pushing back Aude and Roland's blue and brown arrows with a black wave of power that sent them to their knees, clutching their ears as sonic energy pressed upon their eardrums. Hercules and Palamedes resisted, and Oliver's aura glittered in a shield. His black clothes were replaced by a hauberk and armor.

"And look," Mordred piped in fake enthusiasm. "Roland and Oliver. And the lovely Aude. _And _Hercules. What a group."

Another bolt of Aether darted towards him. He blocked most of it, but was grazed slightly.

"Good shot, Oliver," he said wryly."

"Wonderful, Olivere!" Roland called in French as he staggered to his feet, helping his wife up also. Both of them sent unexpected ripples of auric energy rushing across the ground. Mordred fell, caught unawares, and Palamedes and Hercules took their chance. They came at him from either side, Palamedes with a sword, Hercules with a heavy club. Mordred scrambled to his feet, pushing a wave of energy at them. The two immortals fought against it, and, thanks to a united attack from the three French immortals, Palamedes managed to bring the flat side of his blade swinging into Mordred's head with enough force to rattle him.

Mordred fell to his knees.

"Beaten," Hercules said, placing his hands on Mordred's shoulders.

The defeated young man stared at Palamedes. He raised his hand.

Aude, Roland, and Oliver all prepared to attack, but Mordred swung his other hand towards them in a placating gesture.

"Just delivering a message."

He tossed a crumpled piece of paper at Palamedes.

Then, suddenly, the whole clearing echoed with a high pitched whistle, and Mordred vanished, leaving the immortals cowering, with only the smell of black licorice still lingering on the air.


	10. Chapter 10

*Chapter Nine*

"Palamedes!"

He faintly felt hands gripping his shoulders.

"Palamedes!"

In a sudden burst of red light, the scene before Palamedes' eyes changed. Grass and the black canvas of Oliver's tennis shoes turned to stone, and what he saw made him wish that he was dead.

_Will writhed and screamed, in apparent pain, on the cold stone floor. She stood over him, her red aura forming a burning circle about him._

"'_We have scotched the snake, not killed it'," she mused, directing her words at Palamedes. Then she smiled, and turned her eyes towards him._

"_Hurry up."_

"Palamedes!"

A heavy object collided with the crown of Palamedes' head, and he looked up to see Shakespeare retreating as Oliver pulled his book back.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Roland and Hercules were kneeling next to Palamedes, where they had clearly been trying to jolt him from his illusion. Aude was standing by her brother, wringing her hands as she cast nervous glances at the crowd, who, luckily, had not noticed Palamedes' breakdown, as "Roland" was grieving his companion's death in a pathetic, sappy manner.

"Will," he gasped, speaking to himself. He got to his feet, pushing away the helping hands, and strode out of the clearing, the others following.

"Palamedes."

It was Aude. Her chamomile aura flared to life as she gripped his arm. It soothed him, giving him a chance to think.

"We'll find him."

In her dark eyes—so like her brother's—Palamedes saw Will's torture replay, and realized that she too had seen it.

"You saw—?"

"Yes." Her soft voice was sad. "I did. It's a special gift, you could say. Any illusions, I can see. But that's not the point. The point is—"

"Whoa!" Hercules yelled as, with shrieks and curses, the crowd parted, revealing a tall young man, dressed all in black, twirling two twin blades in his gloved hands.

Cloves and incense were the first smells on the air, quickly followed by chamomile, ylang ylang, and coriander as Aude, Oliver, and Roland activated their auras.

"Palamedes. I had the pleasure of briefly meeting your friend," the young man drawled."He wasn't looking too good, but—" he deflected a bolt of sienna colored Aether from Oliver without even looking, "—he'll last a little longer. Until she gets bored."

"Mordred," Palamedes snarled, drawing his sword. "Didn't think I'd see you again."

"Didn't _want_ to see you again," Mordred said casually, pushing back Aude and Roland's blue and brown arrows with a black wave of power that sent them to their knees, clutching their ears as sonic energy pressed upon their eardrums. Hercules and Palamedes resisted, and Oliver's aura glittered in a shield. His black clothes were replaced by a hauberk and armor.

"And look," Mordred piped in fake enthusiasm. "Roland and Oliver. And the lovely Aude. _And _Hercules. What a group."

Another bolt of Aether darted towards him. He blocked most of it, but was grazed slightly.

"Good shot, Oliver," he said wryly."

"Wonderful, Olivere!" Roland called in French as he staggered to his feet, helping his wife up also. Both of them sent unexpected ripples of auric energy rushing across the ground. Mordred fell, caught unawares, and Palamedes and Hercules took their chance. They came at him from either side, Palamedes with a sword, Hercules with a heavy club. Mordred scrambled to his feet, pushing a wave of energy at them. The two immortals fought against it, and, thanks to a united attack from the three French immortals, Palamedes managed to bring the flat side of his blade swinging into Mordred's head with enough force to rattle him.

Mordred fell to his knees.

"Beaten," Hercules said, placing his hands on Mordred's shoulders.

The defeated young man stared at Palamedes. He raised his hand.

Aude, Roland, and Oliver all prepared to attack, but Mordred swung his other hand towards them in a placating gesture.

"Just delivering a message."

He tossed a crumpled piece of paper at Palamedes.

Then, suddenly, the whole clearing echoed with a high pitched whistle, and Mordred vanished, leaving the immortals cowering, with only the smell of black licorice still lingering on the air.


	11. Chapter 11

*Chapter Ten*

His fingers shook as he unfolded the paper.

His handwriting stared up at him, smeared slightly, but still legible.

"'He that is thy friend...'" Hercules muttered, reading the poem quietly. "Sounds like Shakespeare," he finished.

"It is," Oliver said. "At least, it's attributed to Shakespeare."

Hercules muttered something about an authorship issue, but Palamedes wasn't paying any attention.

He scanned the paper, hoping desperately to find some note. But there was nothing.

"Pally! Your fingers!" Aude cried, grabbing his hand. Blood stained his short fingers.

The paper slipped from his hand as Aude took it in her smaller one. They all saw the other side as it fluttered to the ground.

Blood was smeared on the back of the paper.

Roland stooped, retrieving the note, and handed it to Palamedes.

Palamedes took it and stared for a long time at the still wet blood.

There was one word only.

**Palamedes**

It was shaky, but even written in blood, Palamedes recognized the handwriting.

It was Will's.

* * *

The train was crowded, and the group of five was forced to squeeze into one row of seats.

"This is closer than I ever really wanted to be to you," Hercules told Roland.

Charlemagne's nephew spun around to snap, "Well, I _never_ wanted to be this close to you. So think how this is for me."

"You're on my foot, Pally," Aude murmured.

Palamedes removed him boot from Aude's sandaled foot and bumped into Oliver, who gave a shout of indignation as his volume of Shakespeare slammed shut and fell to the ground.

"Page 1616," Roland told him as he retrieved the book.

"Thanks."

"Can I see that?" Palamedes asked.

Oliver handed the book to the knight. Palamedes flipped to page 1616 and saw that it was in the middle of the play _Othello_. He smiled, remembering the time Will had told him that he had written the part of Othello for him.

He gave the book back to Oliver.

"Did you finish _Hamlet_?"

"No," Oliver said. "I gave up."

Hercules laughed, and tried to elbow Oliver in the ribs. He ended up getting Roland, who was clearly reaching the end of his patience for the mythical hero, because his aura ignited, and Hercules swore as he nursed his blistered finger.

"Okay, I get it. You're not a pleasant traveler, you know that, right?"

Oliver laughed. "I forgot how testy you get, Roland." He pronounced it _Ro-lahnd_. "But come on—we have a long ride."

"Great," Hercules groaned. "A long ride with Sir Grumps-A-Lot."

Palamedes closed his eyes, trying to block out the bickering. All he wanted was to find Will.

To do that, he had to get to Camelot.

After a very long ride, the train pulled into the station, and to Palamedes' relief, the only problem they had encountered had been a medium sized spat when Hercules pulled the last straw of Roland's patience by sitting rather closer to Aude than the space required.

Oliver was still smirking at Hercules when they got off—he had helped in distributing punishment. Palamedes hadn't paid much attention to the fight, but Hercules looked uncomfortable, to say the least.

"Camelot is about 6 hours from here," Hercules said, checking the distance on his cell with what little internet he had left. "So, if we rent a car—"

"A bus, the way you and Roland are arguing," Aude said. She was clearly still mad, as her pink cheeks proclaimed, but, being of a sweet disposition, it didn't show in her language.

They rented a car. Oliver drove, claiming that Palamedes was in no state to drive. Palamedes didn't have to look in the mirror to know what Oliver meant. He slipped into the passenger seat, and sat in a stupor, trying to sort through all his thoughts and emotions.

Had it really been only 48 hours ago that he had realized that Will was gone? It felt like a lifetime since he had heard his friend's voice, or seen him. Loneliness and sorrow washed over him. Seeing Roland and Oliver reunited had made it worse. The two men were inseparable. It reminded him of Will. Of how much he missed him.

He absentmindedly flipped through the volume of Shakespeare, reading at haphazard the lines that Oliver had underlined. After a while, he simply stared at the picture on the cover, comparing it with the small photograph that he had tucked into his pocket seconds before St. Germain's house had exploded.

"Nice picture," Oliver said, motioning at the photo. "Who took it?"

"St. Germain."

Oliver nodded. "Can I see it?" he asked after a pause. Palamedes handed the picture to him.

With one hand and eye on the road, Oliver stared long and hard at he photograph. When he was done, he gave it back to Palamedes with a sympathetic smile.

"He seems nice. Really nice."

Palamedes nodded.

"Thanks so much for Roland and Aude here. I had hoped that they weren't dead, but I—how do you look for a couple that people only know from a book? They would have thought me mad."

"I know," Palamedes said. "You're quite welcome."

Oliver smiled again, this time a grim line.

"We'll find him. And we'll find her."

"Do you know her?"

"Oh, yes. By a different name, but I've read enough to know who she is."

"Ah," Palamedes sighed. "It seems that the only person who didn't know about her was Will. I just wanted him to be safe. I thought—no, I hoped—that if he didn't know about her, then she couldn't hurt him."

"Who?" Roland asked. "I don't know this woman. But apparently you and everyone else do."

"Annette," Aude said, when Palamedes didn't answer.

"Who?"

"Annette." It hurt to speak, but he did. "I destroyed her Shadowrealm as revenge for—for something she did. She never forgave me."

"She's also known," Oliver put in, swerving quickly to avoid a truck, "as Morgan le Fay."

Eventually they managed to get to Camelot. To Palamedes' dismay, it was daylight, and tourists flocked everywhere, their hands filled with pamphlets and brochures, wearing merchandise or holding bags filled with memorabilia.

"We'll have to wait," Hercules said, putting a hand on Palamedes' shoulder.

"Or not," Oliver said. "It's not long until closing hours. I can get us in, I believe." His sienna-hued aura shimmered, and soon he was clothed in the simple clothes of a Camelot tour guide. "This way, ladies and gentlemen. Please stay close, and no touching."

Roland also bent his aura, and they split into two groups, once inside. Oliver and Palamedes took one route, while Hercules, Aude, and Roland took another.

"Keep a low profile," Roland warned. "Oliver, no theatrics, _s'il vous plait_. They're not stupid. They won't buy the disguise very long. Palamedes, try to find your friend. We'll try to find Annette."

Oliver yanked Palamedes down the hall. He made a good tour guide. Even in disguise, he pointed out the major aspects of each room—_"Tapestries are centuries old, though not the originals, as they were destroyed by a looting army in the late 800s_—in a professional voice that still retained its warmth and friendliness, and although Palamedes knew everything there was to know about Camelot, he found relief in being able to listen to Oliver's voice.

"Find the Round Table," he muttered, when Oliver stopped and gave him a questioning look. Oliver nodded, and Palamedes could hear almost hear Will's sharp "_Ta_". He sighed.

"You alright?" Oliver asked as they walked casually down the hall, Oliver poking his head into each room they passed.

"No," Palamedes said softly. "You remind me so much of Will. You're both so alike. You act the same way he does."

"Oh, sorry." Oliver patted Palamedes' arm. "What's Shakespeare like?"

Palamedes thought, trying to find words that described Will.

"He's very unique. But not what you'd expect from looking at his picture. He—" Words failed him, and he turned away. They walked in silence, save for Oliver's murmured "No, no" as they passed each tableless room.

Finally, slipping beneath a velvet rope, they emerged into a large, round room. Oliver bowed dramatically, and announced,

"The Round Table, Sir Knight."

It was so different from what Annette had shown him. Everything was in pristine condition—the table was polished, the chairs recently reupholstered.

"Nice," Oliver muttered. "Very nice. I could see myself eating at a table like this."

A speaker crackled above their heads, and a cool male voice proclaimed that "Camelot would be closed to the public in fifteen minutes." The speaker reminded Palamedes that there was security. A glint in the corner confirmed that there were cameras.

"Cameras," he said quietly.

"_Un, du, trois, _yeesh, that's a lot. I counted five," Oliver said.

Palamedes' aura crackled green as he prepared to short circuit the wires with a spell. Oliver beat him to a solution, and with a sharp blast of ylang ylang, something formed a glistening cover over the camera lenses.

"Fake picture," he said in a useless explanation. Then he mouthed, _we're invisible_, and Palamedes began to understand why Roland had warned against theatrics.

"You should have been a movie producer," he said as they took their hiding places.

Oliver shrugged. "It didn't appeal to me. Too many people."

Palamedes snorted. "You work as a tour guide."

"Yeah, but I can ridicule those people. They only come once. If I work with people full time, I have to nice. And let's face it. That's no fun."

"True," Palamedes said. "Very true."

"You used to be an actor, didn't you?" Oliver asked. "I mean, I thought someone mentioned to me that you were acting."

"I used to," Palamedes told him.

"Did you specialize in anything?" Oliver whispered, lowering his tone slightly as a group of bored girls and excited parents walked by.

"Shakespearean monologues."

"Before or after you met Shakespeare?"

"Depends on what you count as meeting. We had a brief run in early in 1603. He was writing a play, but he didn't talk a lot about it. I mean, we barely talked. A few words."

"Like what?" Oliver snorted. "Will Shakespeare, Palamedes. Palamedes, the Bard of London."

Palamedes laughed. "No. More along the lines of, 'Mr. Shakespeare, one of my men.' I worked as a guard back then."

"When did you officially meet?"

"1820. We were both on the run from the police."

"What for?"

"Him for running an illicit business, me for using too much physical contact in teaching a man not to speak of Shakespeare too lightly."

Oliver smothered his laughter in his hand. "That's awesome."

"We've had some laughs over it. But how did you and Roland meet?"

"Haven't you heard the story?"

"Yes, but it's much nicer to know the truth."

"Well, for once the books got it right. I laughed at him for his clothing. He whupped my butt. We became best pals, and, well, etcetera, I guess."

They laughed for a few seconds, and then fell silent. A few minutes later a security guard came round to check the place one last time before leaving. He was obviously tired, because he waved his flashlight about the room once or twice, and then left, announcing into his Bluetooth, "All clear."

No sooner had everyone gone than the whole castle changed.

A warm, cinnamon scented wind swept into the room, making them gag. In its wake it left dust and destruction. The chairs rotted, and the cushions disintegrated. The large table lost its shine, and scratches etched themselves onto the mow dusty surface. The tapestries faded, and dirt pooled in the cracks in the stone floor. In a matter of, perhaps, ten seconds, they stood in the room that Palamedes had seen in Excalibur.

Oliver swore in French. "That was cool." He went up to the table and wiped away a patch of dust. "You'd never guess that it was clean a minute ago."

Palamedes ignored him. He was searching the wall for the small crest that Arthur himself had engraved there millennia ago.

"So, where does Aether come in?" Oliver asked.

"There's a crest on the wall. If I can find it, then you'll have to use Aether to open the passage to the dungeons."

"Oh, okay."

Suddenly a section of the wall gave way, and a dusty Hercules staggered out, coughing.

"Not there," he said, motioning back towards the passage he had just left, where Roland and Aude were following at a slower pace."We just came from there. Nothing but a tower."

Roland and Aude appeared, and went straight to Oliver.

Palamedes cursed as he ran his fingers over the wall. No crest was there. He searched again. And again. And again.

"Maybe she moved it?" Hercules suggested, as Palamedes pushed a bookcase aside.

"How would you move a crest?" Aude asked skeptically, and Oliver laughed out loud.

"You don't, you imbecile."

"My uncle always said that the best place to look for something is where it should be," Roland offered, examining the table for any deformities.

"So look in the clichéd places?" Aude suggested.

They did, to no avail.

Frustrated, Palamedes slammed his fist against the table. He drew back, his hand bleeding.

Hercules picked up the object. "Excalibur."

"No," Palamedes muttered. "Clarent." After examination, he added, "Another illusion."

He held it up, waiting for the blade to reveal Annette's newest hint, but nothing happened, except that Aude gave a cry.

"Is that it?"

She motioned at the hilt. They all peered at it, and Hercules said,

"I don't think so."

'Do you even know what we're looking for?" Roland asked in irritation.

"What does it matter?" Hercules said. "We already know that it's got to be on the wall."

"No," Palamedes said. "Aude's right. That's it."

"DANG!" Hercules yelled. "I hate it when others are right. I'm _NEVER _right!"

"Shut up!" Roland and Oliver hissed.

Palamedes handed Oliver the sword.

"What do I do?" Oliver asked, waving the sword about and narrowly missing Hercules.

"Let some of you power leak into it."

"Great," Oliver muttered. "I really like that idea. Surrender my power to a sword that's not even real, and is under the spell of a tyrannical lunatic. Love it." But he released a bit of his sienna colored power, and the sword suddenly flew from his hands.

"Follow it!" Hercules said, but the sword merely attached itself to a portion of the wall, which disappeared as the sword faded, revealing a passageway.

"Or follow the passage," Hercules muttered. "Whatever works."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N-The regular disclaimer applies.**

**I just realized that this seems a lot like Harry Potter. Sorry about that. :( I guess I've been reading too much Marauders fanfic of late. **

*Chapter Eleven*

So close.

He was so, so close.

Everything except Will disappeared. He didn't hear the other immortals, even when a strange cry reverberated in the narrow hall. He didn't feel the strange wind that whipped about him in the dark passageway as if leaking in from an opening. And he didn't smell licorice until the sword slammed into his knee.

"Hey." Mordred stood over him, his swords flaming slightly with black fire. Palamedes surged to his feet, casting a quick glance back at where the others were. Or where they should have been.

"Oh, they encountered a little trapdoor. That's all. Sorry, but I wanted it to be just you and me." Mordred grinned.

Palamedes gripped his sword. "Easily done."

Mordred chuckled. "Alright, then. Do I need to tell you to bring it on?"

Both men charged, their swords connecting in a spurt of fire. Black flames coursed along Mordred's blades, surging down Palamedes' also, making the hilt burn. The high scream of metal rang throughout the corridor as they tore the swords away, preparing for another strike.

Palamedes fought as he had never fought before. Mordred was the only thing between him and Will. Anger clouded his vision and his judgment. He swung wildly, not thinking, hoping to feel the blade connect with flesh. But Mordred was good. He fought with a prowess that Palamedes had not expected. He deflected every blow, and often managed to slip in a bolt of auric energy as he backed away. The advantage was with him: he was rested, fed, and triumphant, whereas Palamedes had not eaten or slept since Will's disappearance, and was beaten down both physically, mentally, and emotionally by the stress of his friend's capture.

Their blades connected once more, and this time a black smoke crawled off of Mordred's swords, enveloping Palamedes in a cloud that paralyzed him.

"Beaten," he said smugly, echoing Hercules' pleased statement of the earlier battle, as he brought his weapon up in a move that sent Palamedes' sword twisting, nearly falling out of the knight's stiff hand.

"Not yet."

Palamedes summoned up some of his aura—the only thing not paralyzed—and sent his favorite spell at Mordred.

An invisible force pressed the young man into the ground. He crumpled slowly, pushed down as if he bore the weight of the earth. As he struggled to evade the pressure, the black cloud around Palamedes' vanished, and the knight stepped forward, bringing his sword down in a killing stroke that, at the last moment, turned into a stunning blow. Mordred went limp, and fell to the cold stone floor.

Will had never really approved of killing.

Leaving Mordred's still form sprawled in the passage, and the other immortals to their own devices, Palamedes pressed on, searching for the stairs that he had seen in Excalibur. The corridor was long, with no turns, but it stretched on in what seemed an endless strip of stone.

After what seemed like an eternity, the steps appeared before him: long, cracked, and stooping. Palamedes rushed forward, Will's name escaping from his lips in a ragged whisper.

The stones beneath his feet shifted, and before he even had a chance to analyze his situation, the ground gave way beneath him as the stones pulled aside, and he plummeted down.

Reflexes allowed him to land, crouched down like a cat, on his feet. The impact sent jars of pain running up and down his legs, but it was better than a head concussion, which was a complication he couldn't afford.

"Palamedes!"

Hercules and Roland rushed forward, helping him to his feet, though he didn't need it.

"What happened?" Hercules asked. "I saw Mordred, but he trapdoored us before we could warn you."

Roland nodded in affirmation, and he muttered something in French that Palamedes didn't bother to listen to.

"Where are the others?" Palamedes said.

"Olivere is wounded," Roland answered softly, pale with concern.

"Not much," Oliver asserted, but his voice was slurred, as if he'd had too much to drink. Palamedes suspected that he'd received the concussion that Palamedes had been so careful to avoid.

Aude sat by her brother, trying to convince him to lie down. She nodded at Palamedes, but then returned her attention to Oliver. Roland soon joined them.

"What happened?" Hercules demanded again.

"Doesn't matter," Palamedes told him, retrieving his fallen sword and heading towards the passage that opened out of the wall. "Where does this lead?"

"Don't know," Hercules answered. "We were preoccupied." He followed Palamedes, but the knight held out a large hand.

"Don't come. Get Oliver out and to a hospital, and—"

"Whoa," Hercules cut in. "Roland and Aude can get Oliver out. I'm coming with you."

Aude backed him up. "When you find Will, he'll be in no state to walk. You can carry him, but you'll risk his getting hurt more if you don't have someone to cover you."

Palamedes ignored her, though she had made a point that he knew he would have to concede to. He couldn't hurt Will.

"I agree," Roland said, and then, glancing at Hercules, "But I think I should go. I know how to use a sword."

Hercules shook his head. "I've got my club, and I know some magic."

"Yes, well, magic can go astray. Miss its mark. You could hit Palamedes or Will."

"The same could happen with a sword."

"Not as easily."

Hercules opened his mouth to retort, but Aude settled the matter in a stern voice that never grew in volume.

"Both of you go. Who knows, you may be needed."

"But Olivere—" Roland began, but Aude was already on her feet, guiding her concussed brother to his.

"I can get him out. He can walk; all he needs is a guide. I think I can find a way out."

Her husband hesitated, torn between his love of his wife and his companion, and his conviction that Palamedes needed him. He finally went over and kissed Aude, and clasped his companion's hand tightly. Then he turned back to Palamedes and Hercules.

"Let's go."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N-Once again, the regular disclaimer...**

**Now _Lord of the Rings_ makes a small plot appearance. I'm sorry. I'm highly influenced by book plots and characters.**

*Chapter Twelve*

They raced down the passage, following the cold rush of wind. None of them spoke, too busy ruminating on the events of the past two days. Friends had been lost, made, and regained. Immortals had been united in a rescue mission that was nearing completion. The only thing missing was Will.

Will.

Will.

Palamedes had never missed him so much. He'd never know just how much Will meant to him. Never realized just how important his friendship was. Never thought about the fact that Will was far more than a friend. He was family.

Now he did know this. He knew it all too well. It had taken disaster to make him see it.

He rammed into the monster with enough force to send it flying back down the tunnel.

Wings unfurled and jagged claws raked against the stone floor. Teeth bared, and a low growl brought the scent of dead meat rushing towards them.

Roland and Hercules skidded to a halt. Auras lit, and metal keened as Roland drew his sword from its sheath.

"Palamedes!" Roland yelled above the frightening roar of the charging monster, "Just go!"

"_Yes, Palamede, hurry,"_ Annette whispered. It echoed in the tunnel.

"We'll handle it," Hercules assured him, but at the moment the monster collided with them.

It screamed as Palamedes' sword made connection with its scaly skin.

Hercules whooped and pushed Palamedes down the tunnel.

"Go," he said. "She won't wait much longer."

Palamedes ran, slashing once more at the creature. This time a tail thudded to the floor, severed by his blade.

"Way to go!" Hercules yelled.

Palamedes quickly left the battle behind, and rushed up a set of stairs that appeared out of nowhere. Patches of water splattered the steps, and several times he nearly lost his footing as he slipped on them in his haste.

He finally made it to the top, and realized that he had gone too high. Another set of stairs branched off from the main one, and he took a downward staircase. When he reached the bottom, he swung left, no longer following his memories, but a gut instinct.

"Will?" he called, glancing into the cells as he rushed by, nostrils searching for the smell of lemons.

"Will?" His voice got louder as his emotions began to roil. _He was there. He was here. He could tell. But where?_

775...810...he noticed the numbers scraped into the wall beside each cell. Maybe there was a clue in the numbers. What number would she put Will in?

1616. The same instinct that told him that Will was in this direction told him that 1616 was the cell he was looking for.

904...999...

A wall loomed up in front of him, and he slammed to a stop. A quick look in both directions gave him only one choice: left again.

1001...1126...

The numbers began to merge in his head, making thinking and discernment impossible.

1339...1500...

1564. Palamedes stopped for a brief moment, searching cell 1564 with more care. Then he sped on again, searching frantically.

1600...

He slowed.

1610...

"Will?"

1612...

So close.

1614...

"Will?"

1616...

"Will!"

The Bard lay slumped on the floor. Even through the bars Palamedes could see the marks of torture.

"Will!"

He didn't move.

"Will!" Palamedes hurled himself at the bars. A sharp zap of energy sent a thrill of pain up his side, but he persisted. "Will!"

The rusted bars finally gave way, the reddish debris coating his shoes.

Palamedes ran to where Will lay. He round his friend's wrist and waited.

It was a long time coming. For several seconds Palamedes had begun to think that Will was dead.

But no.

He was breathing, ever so lightly, and he stirred slightly at the pressure of Palamedes' hands.

"Will..."

Palamedes wasn't' yelling anymore. He was whispering, a soft plea that only Will could hear.

"Will..."

And then, so quiet that it barely echoed in the cell,

"Palamedes...?"


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N-Disclaimer applies. :)**

**This is deep friendship. **

*Chapter Thirteen*

Palamedes gripped Will's hand, willing him with every ounce of his power to wake up. And he did, slowly. His pale blue eyes opened, and he stared at Palamedes in recognition, his eyes glittering behind his glasses.

"Palamedes." Not a question. A statement.

His voice shaking dangerously, Palamedes said, "Who else?"

The two friends embraced, holding onto each other tightly, unwilling to let go. Palamedes felt Will wince as the connection ignited the pain of wounds that needed cared for. He also felt the Bard shake as he cried.

"I knew it," he sobbed. "I knew you were coming when I got the note. I knew before that, even. I told them. I told them both that you'd come."

The tears that had been so reluctant to come before now threatened to spill over. Palamedes could feel them biting at the corners of his eyes, threatening to pour down his face. But he didn't let them. He had to be strong for Will, who had borne and suffered so much because of Palamedes' past. He had to be strong for Will, who needed him now more than anyone had ever needed him before.

"I'm sorry," Palamedes whispered, hearing the tears lurking behind his deep tones. "I wanted to keep you safe. I was stupid, and it put you in the very danger I was trying to save you from. I'm sorry. So, so sorry."

Will hiccupped quietly, trying to overcome his tears. He wiped his eyes, pushing at his glasses as he scrubbed at the tears.

Palamedes got to his feet, pulling Will up with him. The English immortal's legs gave way beneath him, and he nearly fell. Palamedes caught him quickly and hoisted him back up carefully.

"I'm alright," Will assured him, though he was pale and trembling, and some of his worse wounds—Palamedes could see them now: long gashes that were barely healed, if healed at all—were bleeding. For the second time in the past few days Palamedes' hands were stained with his friend's dark blood.

Supporting Will, Palamedes headed for the broken entrance of the cell, trying to push the doubts that arose out of his mind.

Will couldn't take the stairs. He wouldn't be able to. He could barely walk, even with Palamedes' strong arm supporting him.

Palamedes shoved the thoughts aside, choosing to concentrate on the present.

It was slow moving, but they finally reached the stairs—the stairs that Will would be unable to climb.

Will moved on doggedly, ignoring Palamedes' hesitation, but the latter's suspicions as to his capability of ascending the staircase were confirmed when he collapsed without Palamedes' support.

"I can do it," he said firmly, in response to the waves of unspoken concern that could be felt emanating from Palamedes. He struggled to his feet, and, like a toddler using the welcome aid of a chair when it learns to walk, he grabbed Palamedes' arm and pulled himself up, wobbling slightly as his legs received even the smallest portion of his weight.

"I'll be there every step," Palamedes told him as, inching forward, they started the climb.

Each step sapped a bit of Will's strength. Every twist and turn of the staircase left him weaker and weaker. By the time they reached the top, his pale yellow aura was flickering about him, trying to offer more support, to strengthen him where Palamedes' could not. But even his aura was failing quickly.

As soon as they left the last step behind them, Will crumpled to the ground, pale, trying not to gasp for air, or clutch his side, or show any weakness.

The hall was deserted. There was no sign of Hercules or Roland, save for a few scorch marks where, perhaps, their auras had come into use. Or where, more likely, the beast that had detained them had shown itself even better equipped than they had thought. No blood was present on the floor, which was a small reassurance, and Palamedes hurried Will along, not wanting to meet with a monster that might not have been satiated.

"Camelot," Will said softly, looking around. "We're in Camelot."

Palamedes nodded.

They passed the room where Palamedes and the others had stood about the Round Table. Will stared at it in amazement, stopping for a moment to better soak it in. He smiled at Palamedes.

"Did you sit there?"

"Yes."

"You would have sat at Arthur's side," Will said with conviction. He wasn't asking Palamedes for an answer. He was sure. Palamedes smiled as they started moving again.

Before long, the doors to Camelot loomed up out of the darkness. A cool night breeze crept through the crack beneath the large wooden doors, and both Will and Palamedes sighed, sucking in the fresh smell of freedom.

"Almost," Palamedes whispered, reassuring himself more than Will, though the Bard gave a quiet sound of pleasure at the idea of being so close. "Almost free..."

20 feet...

They limped along—Will was tiring, and the stones were jagged and uneven, making for difficult terrain.

15 feet...

A small cry of pain escaped Will's lips as they hit a rise, and stumbled.

10 feet...

"Leaving? Oh, Palamedes, the play's not over yet."

They spun around, tripping on their tired feet, sinking to the ground, where they saw the beginning of the newest arrival.

High heeled pumps flashed a greeting from the bottom of long, slender legs that finally disappeared beneath a coal-black miniskirt. Another strip of pale skin, and then a cling black shirt that emphasized a narrow, curvy waist. Slim shoulders arched into a delicate neck, which was half hidden in a sheet of brilliant red hair.

"I should thank you." Blood-red lips. A small, pert nose. Eyes the same blue was Will's, though infinitely more cruel.

"Will has been such a _lovely_ guest," Annette purred, chucking Will lightly beneath the chin in a flirtatious manner. Her fingers were long and slender, just like Will's—a pianist's fingers, though, not a writer's.

Will recoiled from her touch, something like fear shimmering in his washed out eyes.

"So compliant," Annette continued, tapping Will on the nose. "So quiet. He never complained, never cried. He was a perfect little angel."

Palamedes made to get up, and his fingers felt for his blade—which, to his dismay and despair, he remember now still lay on the cold floor of the dungeon, abandoned when Will had taken precedence. Even as he groped for the hilt of the nonexistent sword, he felt the cool blade of a sword brush against his neck, feather light, but deadly. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a nearly identical one pressed against Will's throat.

"Hello again," Mordred growled. A large bump was present on the side of his head, and the bruise already blossoming was an ugly green and purple. He glared at Palamedes, his dark eyes full of hatred, and the fiery emotion didn't leave when he turned to face Will, his lips curving in a filthy smile.

"If you get out of this alive, I'll owe you a pound. Not that you ever took up the bet, but—you missed it, Palamedes. Your friend and I made a one-sided bet that you wouldn't be stupid enough to follow Aunt Morgan here. I offered him a pound if you came. He never answered, but, here you are, and, as a man of honor, if you two come out of this alive, you'll be a pound richer."

"Mordred." Annette's voice had lost its flirtatious tone. "That's quite enough. You've had your fun. Plenty of it, though you ought to have picked up your toys when you were done with them. Now it's my turn."

The swords didn't move, though Mordred fell silent. No command to remove the blades was forthcoming.

"Good. Now, Palamedes—_Pally_—isn't that what some of your friends call you?—"

"Palamedes," Will muttered, a small bit of life coming back into his voice, and, Palamedes hoped, into his body.

"Silence, Will. You'll have your monologue, I'm sure. You are Shakespeare, after all. But right now Juliet is on stage."

She returned to Palamedes, an evil smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

"Remember when you burned my Shadowrealm, Palamedes? Remember?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember why?"

"It was vengeance for your crimes."

Annette laughed, and bent down to Will, so that she was at eye level, pale eyes meeting pale eyes in a battle that only one could win.

"Do you hear that? My nephew..._suggested_...to the Archon that Arthur would be better off dead. Cernunnos agreed, and, completely on his own initiative, killed the wise, kind, old king. Palamedes seemed to think, loyal knight that he was, that my nephew hadn't come up with that idea on his own. He thought that _I_ had suggested it to Mordred, who, on _my_ orders, suggested it to Cernunnos, who, obeying _implied_ orders from _me_, killed my half-brother. With that belief in mind, he went and burned _my_ Shadowrealm." She paused, and ran a finger along the bridge of Will's nose. When she spoke again, she sounded like an enraptured cat. "Revenge was slow in coming—oh, Palamedes was good. He knew to hide. But imagine my pleasure when I realized that Palamedes had a friend. A very dear friend who lived with him. A friend who was left alone very often, with only a measly mutt to protect him. A friend...oh, and imagine my even greater pleasure when I found, upon my arrival, that that very same friend, alone, with his dear mongrel taken care of, had absolutely no idea who I was."

She straightened, and her hair fluttered in the light breeze.

"So."

Red sparks began to crackle about her hands. Her eyes narrowed, and her fingers twitched in anticipation of her impending revenge.

"Palamedes, I think that _now_ it is time to settle the score. Don't you think? It lies at 1 to 1 right now, a pretty little tie."

She glanced back at her nephew, who was watching hungrily.

"You bet, what, a pound, Mordred, that he would come?"

He nodded.

"So, let's say you and I have a little bet. I say a pound that I win. Do you want to bet?"

"I bet a pound that not only do you win, but you don't leave a trace behind," Mordred said softly.

"Bet taken."

As they chattered, Will murmured,

"I'm sorry, Palamedes."

Palamedes yanked his eyes from the duo and looked at Will in confusion.

"Will, what fo—"

With a sudden force and speed that Palamedes had not expected, Will rose to his feet, and, taking a step backward, slammed his whole body into Palamedes.

Caught off guard, Palamedes fell backwards, sent flying, propelled by the same blast of energy that threw the large doors open.

Annette spun around. Mordred's blades spun, pushed away from Will and Palamedes by the blast.

"Very funny," Annette growled, her fingers glowing.

"NO!" Palamedes cried, landing on his back in the wet grass. For a moment, everything was hidden from view.

"But not funny enough. I'm not laughing."

"NO!" This time it was a scream. Every alarm in his brain was rattling. Every pore in his body was throbbing with horror.

Leaping up, feet slipping in the grass, Palamedes ran for the doors.

He knew even as he dashed forward, covering the yards with long strides and bounds, that he wouldn't make it. He knew, even as he strained every muscle in his body, egging his legs on, that he was going to be too late.

"But every joke deserves a round of applause."

Mere seconds before he reached them, the doors slammed shut, drawn inwards by a fierce, spicy wind that blew Annette's hair about her in a wild read halo. As Palamedes flew up the steps, the doors closed, locking themselves, and everything shone, brightly illuminated by the blinding flash of red and yellow light.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N-Regular disclaimer applies...**

**Last installment. I really hope you've enjoyed this. I did. Can't wait to press the little button on my story status. I know a little button that I would dearly love for you all to press. It's at the bottom of the page, and it has six letters, three of which are vowels. Please do press! :)**

**willshakespeare-immortalbard**

*Chapter Fourteen*

"NO!" The scream tore itself free from his lips, ringing across the rolling lawns.

Palamedes hurled himself at the doors with every ounce of his strength. They didn't move, locked and bolted from the inside.

"WILL! WILL!" His throat was raw, but he didn't stop screaming. "NO! WILL!"

Silence was the only answer to his cries.

It wasn't the answer he wanted. But it was the only one he needed. The silence was one that he knew only too well. It was the silence found in darkened rooms, where the blinds were drawn, and blurred figures wept into the indiscernible covers of a bed. It was the silence found in a group of black-clad people with heads bowed, blood-red roses clutched in their hands, the thorns leaving pinpricks of blood on their fingers. It was the silence found in decimated villages and battlefields, where the wind was the only movement. It was the silence of death. It was the silence that reigns when no one lives to break it.

"Will..." His voice broke as the silence whispered the horrid, horrid truth.

Pain crashed into him, leaving devastation in its wake. Tears choked him, and he could feel himself shaking. A scream built in his gut, twisting his insides, churning his stomach, rising like bile in his throat, where it forced its way past his lips, emerging in a sob that wrenched itself free from a place in his heart that, in all the long years of his life of immortality, he had never known was there.

"No. No, no, no, no, no..." he moaned, sounding like a wounded animal. The sound crawled across the deserted lawn, breaking the silence of death, replacing it with the sound of grief—that sound that follows so swiftly on the heels of death and destruction. When the silence of death reigns, it does so for only a little while, quickly abdicating its position, moving aside for the wails of grief and loss that stay for so much longer, echoing in the spaces that death made empty. Then those cries also step away, surrendering to the quiet tears that never really leave.

"No...Will...no..."

A slow, pattering rain began to fall, and Palamedes remembered the night that he had lost Will the first time. It had rained just like that: gentle, as if the whole world was crying, mimicking the tears that, then, he had been unable to shed.

No longer. The tears fell freely now, mingling with the rain, filling his mouth with the taste of salt that those who have truly cried forever call the taste of sorrow.

He knelt there, in a timeless grief, unable to move, unable to do anything.

He knelt there, broken, sobbing like a child into his hands, where the metallic taste of blood combined with the salt of his tears.

He knelt there, with nothing but the stone steps, the soggy grass, and the cool midnight wind, still filled with the heady scents of cinnamon and lemon.

* * *

*Epilogue*

In the end, he didn't even feel the sword.


	16. REWRITE: Chapter 1

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

** Notes: Over three years ago I put up my first story on FF—**_**Cinnamon and Lemon**_**. Since then I've added greatly to the number of stories I've written, and my writing style, dialogue, and character representation has changed immensely in the three years since **_**Cinnamon and Lemon **_**was first put up. So I decided to rewrite this story: I've published it separately so that those who like the story as it was when it was first published can still read the original version (also, for sentimental reasons of my own). My plan is to keep the rewrite fairly close to the original in terms of plot content, but some small plot changes may be made; besides plot it will be, for all intents and purposes, a fairly new story.**

** Summary: REWRITE—When a mysterious enemy of Palamedes' resurfaces from his past, the Saracen Knight is yanked into a journey to rescue his best friend, Will Shakespeare; will he make it in time? Rated T for character deaths, violence, some dark material, and possible triggers. Please read/review (as this is a rewrite, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on it). NO SLASH; friendship only. **

* * *

Thunder made the windows rattle. Dark clouds covered the sky, blanketing the world in darkness. Sharp seams of lightning zigzagged across the horizon, ripping gashes in the black clouds like claws upon a curtain. The lights in the room flickered, faltered, and died; the room went dark.

"My word." A matched scraped. A small flame flared to life with a hiss, casting an eerie red glow around the room, illuminating the two empty couches and the lifeless, black computer screens. "We just lost power, I'd say."

Palamedes laughed, his deep Babylonian accent rumbling through the room like thunder. "State the obvious."

In the flickering light of the candle, Palamedes saw Will shake his head. "Well," he said in a tone of fake offense, "you needn't be so rude." His voice was sharp and clipped; he never slurred, and one could easily hear the long, British elongation of vowels in every word.

A candle sputtered as the match flame made connection with the just cut wick, the dancing tongues of fire setting shadows scattering across the walls. They looked like long finger (_outstretched, searching_). Palamedes watched them as they crawled along the shabby walls, remembering with a pang how they had used to inch their way down the metal walls of the junkyard. He sighed and closed his eyes, trying to block out the painful memories—memories of fire, of the baying of hounds, and the childish voice of an Archon.

Gabriel whined from the floor as he sensed the negative flow of Palamedes' thoughts. He looked up at the knight, his red eyes frightening in the dim candlelight.

"What are you thinking about?" Will asked as he walked by to put the candle on the table. He reached down and absent-mindedly stroked Gabriel's ears.

"Nothing."

"It looks scarier here," Will said, nodding toward the dancing shadows. "In the junkyard, they were mysterious. Now they just look wrong. Like someone trying to find you."

Palamedes nodded. Will was right. The fingers had not been menacing in the metal shack that had been their home for so long; they had left enigmas and questions behind them—where were they going? what were they looking for? Here, in the dingy apartment they had lived in since the junkyard's destruction, those enigmas were solved. There was no question as to where they were going; they were not going anywhere. There was no question as to what they were looking for; they were looking for him. _Palamedes_. Memories (_even more horrid_) came back, of dark eyes and blood red lips, of slim, dainty fingers that killed without mercy, of the spicy smell of cinnamon.

A small burst of yellow light coincided with the lightning's purple flash. Palamedes jumped nervously and looked up from his ruminations. "What are you doing?"

Will smiled, the bright yellow of his aura dancing across his face, echoing itself in his washed out blue eyes.

"Practicing," he said innocently. He sent another pool of lemon scented magic dripping to the stain on the floor (there as long as they had been). The stain shimmered, and disappeared. "Finally!" Will sighed. "I was beginning to think that I would never get rid of it."

On the floor beside them, Gabriel lapped at the yellow residue with his forked tongue. He was the only Torc Madra they had kept; the rest of those that had survived the battle with the Archon had been chased away by Palamedes. They were sufficient animals. They could—they would—fend for themselves. Gabriel, however, Palamedes had fought for the chance to retain: he had battled it out long and hard with their cranky apartment manager. Will was incredibly attached to the dog, he had insisted, and the man had relented, though his hyperventilation was only slightly calmed by the reassurance of Gabriel's being quiet and house-trained.

"Do you miss the junkyard?" Palamedes asked in an attempted casual manner. It failed, and his voice sounded lost and unhappy, like a child. Palamedes hated the tone. But he couldn't help it. The junkyard had been his idea, his creation: to lose it to Flamel of all people was a sore blow.

"Of course," Will said quietly, sadness creeping into his soft voice. "I think of it every single day, all the time. I miss it." Palamedes knew he did: the small, dingy apartment with their cranky, hyperventilating manager grated on Will's nerves and made him unhappy—it made Palamedes feel worse. "But we can—we _will_—rebuild it sometime, Palamedes. You know that. Perhaps not there, but somewhere. We'll be able to fix it." He sighed, and the sound whistled through the room. "Do you feel like dinner?"

Palamedes smiled. "Of course. Steak?" The conversation was tangibly awkward, an obvious attempt to forget what they had just spoken of. But they both complied.

"Of course we do. We're on the same page, you and I."

They laughed, half-heartedly at first, then genuinely. Gabriel, enthusiastic at seeing them happy, barked joyfully.

"Shhh!" both immortals hissed.

"No," Palamedes hushed. "You've got to stay quiet."

The hound fell silent; Will and Palamedes did not laugh a second time. The necessity of hushing Gabriel had reminded them of the loss of their home, and the loss of their freedom that had come with it.

A cold blast of air swept over them as Will pulled open the freezer door.

"Close the door," Palamedes muttered. "It's cold."

"Wait a moment. Patience is a virtue," Will tossed over his shoulder. Palamedes could hear him talking to himself as he dug around in the freezer. "Green beans, frozen, ugh…fries, ice cream…aha!" He resurfaced with a package of steak and tossed it triumphantly on the counter, along with a frozen pack of green beans.

Palamedes look at the vegetables and raised an eyebrow.

"_Those _are getting tossed," Will said, motioning toward the frozen produce. "Who bought _frozen_ green beans?"

"I did. Try something new?"

"No." Will chucked the green beans into the trash and started fiddling around in the kitchen, pulling out pans as quietly as he could. He glanced at the time. "This isn't going to be ready until midnight at least."

"Should I run and get pizza?" Palamedes asked.

Will laughed. "That sounds splendid."

Palamedes heaved himself off of his seat at the table and grabbed his coat. "I will return," he said majestically, "with several pizzas and a couple liters of soda!"

He closed the door behind him, and even through the wood he could hear Will laughing.

* * *

"I heard your dog."

The apartment manager was a small man—barely taller than Will—but he had a way of getting into his lodgers' faces. Palamedes staggered backward, trying to avoid running him over.

"Yes, I'm so sorry. He got a little wound up."

The manager stepped forward, standing on tiptoe in an attempt to get eye to eye with the tall knight. "You know what I told you when you moved in. If he gets loud, he'll have to go."

"I know," Palamedes said quickly. "I'm very sorry. Will and I both understand the inconvenience this is causing you, and we both appreciate it immensely. I can't tell you how much Will adores the dog; your kindness isn't unappreciated."

Groveling. Palamedes hated it, especially when the object was the disgusting, bad-tempered manager. But it was necessary: he couldn't ask Will to get rid of Gabriel—saying goodbye to the other Torc Madra had been difficult enough for the English immortal. To get rid of Gabriel would crush Will, and he was already unhappy enough. Yet they couldn't move. Palamedes was sick of moving. Will was sick of moving. They both planned to rebuild sooner rather than later, and every move added to their unhappiness.

"…kindness, along with my patience, is running out!" the manager snapped. He had apparently continued talking while Palamedes had been lost in thought.

"Yes. Once again, we're both very sorry for the inconvenience. It won't happen again. If you could please excuse me—"

"Don't forget your rent! It's due!"

"It's upstairs. I was going to hand it in tomorrow, but if you feel the need to collect it now, Will's in." Palamedes prayed that the manager wouldn't mention who had sent him up there.

"Very well. Remember what I said about keeping that mutt under control. If I hear him barking much more, he'll have to go, and you'll follow soon after!"

It took all of Palamedes' self control to quell his anger. He hated to be scolded, especially when it was by his small, irritating manager. But he kept his cool and hurried into the night air.

It was a relatively short walk to the parking complex, and Palamedes welcomed the exercise. Working as a cabbie didn't allow for stretching, and while Will laughed at Palamedes' only slightly exaggerated hobble at the end of a long day, the fact that he always had a heat pack on hand showed that he took it seriously.

Passers-by stared at Palamedes in a mixture of awe and intimidation. While it was fairly well known in the area by now that he was a cabbie and worked odd hours at times, and while seeing him at said odd hours was a familiar sight to most of the locals, his height and muscle still frightened them sometimes.

The parking complex was empty. Everybody was either at home or off at work, which meant that Palamedes could rev the engine. He did, slipping into the black taxi cab and revving a couple of times. It roared to life, and he smiled: it had been Will's idea to put a louder engine into the taxi cab, but both immortals enjoyed it. Their manager did not. Palamedes had, thus far, avoided telling Will the manager's verdict on the poor vehicle.

Poor will. The manager was hard on both of them, having sensed their desire to find a quick and easy place to live. He had, if not fear, at least a nagging respect for Palamedes that kept him from going overboard on the bad treatment. Unfortunately, that respect did not extend to Will, and the Bard was forced to put up with the man's harsh ways far more often than Palamedes. Will had taken to hiding when the manager marched up the stairs to chew them out for some offence or other.

The car jumped as it hit a pothole, and Palamedes swore. "Suspension," he muttered. He switched on the radio and let himself simmer over the injustice of their manager, Flamel, the terrible London roads, and whatever else stirred his fancy until he reached the pizza place.

It was cramped inside the pizza store. Several families with small children had chosen the same night to get pizza, and the small store echoed with screaming as Palamedes stood in line. His cell phone rang as he tapped his foot in impatience.

"Hello?"

"I just got plagued about the rent." Will sounded cross.

"I'm sorry." (Best to confess.) "He was asking about it, and I sent him up."

"He said so."

"He stopped me to rant about the dog."

Will sighed unhappily. "We don't have to…?"

"No. I've warded that off for now. But the car motor has to be fixed." (He was spouting bad news—might as well give it all). "He doesn't like the noise."

"Oh yes, he told me that." Will's bad humor evaporated briefly as he apparently reveled in remembering the manager's protest. "He turned red while making it very clear to me that the motor would have to go. Well…actually, he told me that the car would have to go, but I assured him as a mechanic that it was simply a motor issue. Are you almost back?"

"No. I'm in line." The cashier cleared his throat, and Palamedes realized that the line was gone. "It's my turn. It should be about ten minutes."

"Alright. Ta ta."

Palamedes hung up, ordered, and left as quickly as he could; he arrived back home wet, but looking forward to a snack. Will, however, was in a sour mood.

"Guess who came back?" he asked grumpily as an answer to Palamedes' questioning look.

"Mr. Manager?"

"Of course." Will threw himself onto one of the couches. "He came back to rant for absolutely no reason! The dog doesn't look like he's well taken care of—if the humane center has to get called in, we can pack up and go! The car's too loud—we'll have to get rid of it, and if we don't do it soon we can pack up and go!" He slid down the couch, covering his face with his hands. His next murmur was miserable. "I can't do this."

"I know," Palamedes said soothingly. "But look—I've got pizza and soda, with lots of caffeine," he added, trying to smooth Will's ruffled feathers.

Will snorted. "We'll never sleep!"


	17. REWRITE: Chapter 2

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

* * *

Despite his claims of potential sleeplessness (and his three cups of high-caffeine soda) Will dozed off not long after one in the morning, after two good meals and part of a bad comedy. Palamedes laughed quietly as he tossed a spare blanket over his sleeping roommate. Then he grabbed the soda bottle and poured himself another cup.

He was trying to avoid the nightmares.

Centuries ago they had used to keep him up at night—tossing and turning, plagued by them until he worked himself into a cold sweat. Years and years of practice had eventually sufficed to, if not eliminate them, at least keep them at bay. But now the nightmares that had lurked in the backdrop of his dreams, every once in a while edging into them and turning them into horrific visions, had burst forth again: once again he would wake in the middle of the night, swallowing the cries that were on his lips; every night he would retreat to one of the unused bedrooms (thirty years of living in the junkyard and sleeping on couches was a hard habit to break), where he would pace back and forth, covering the room in a few short steps before turning around to walk the other way. Every night now Gabriel would watch him and follow him, lying in the doorway, staring with all too human eyes. He never transformed and told Will—he understood that Palamedes didn't want to get Will involved.

For a week Palamedes had been avoiding sleep, downing cups and cups of tea, coffee, soda—anything to keep him awake. It wasn't working anymore. Will's deep, contented breathing from the neighboring couch was infectious, and Palamedes soon found his eyelids growing heavy. He fought against the growing tide of sleep; it was hopeless. His vision soon grew dark, and he slipped tiredly into the dungeon of his mind.

* * *

_Smoke and ash block his vision. His eyes water, and he blinks rapidly to rid them of tears. The heat is enveloping and overpowering, stronger than any sedative. He slows. The break in his leg sends shocks of agonizing pain shooting up into his whole body. His face bleeds from the scrapes that streak across both sides of his face—three long tears ripping into his dark skin; they'll scar, he's certain of it. _

_ The sharp smell of cinnamon assaults his nostrils, and the spicy smell arrests what breath he still has in an almost crippling cough. _

_ "YOU!" The enraged scream echoes in his ears. "You'll pay for this, Palamedes! You will!"_

_ The fire flares up behind him, rushing on his heels with supernatural speed and accuracy. It licks at his heels, burning and blistering his skin. Another jolt of pain runs through him, and he winces, but never stops. _

_ The gate looms ahead. The dark metal is already melting, dripping and oozing in the heat. Outside, a flicker of natural light proclaims the real world, the world untouched by a failing Shadowrealm. _

_ The last thing he hears as the Shadowrealm dies and he stumbles through the melting gates into safety is her frenzied alto, cursing him, threatening him, vowing revenge. _

_ "You'll pay, Palamedes! I'll kill you! I'll kill—"_

* * *

"Palamedes! Palamedes!"

Something slammed into Palamedes' face.

He jolted awake, swatting at the attacker; his hand hit metal, and Will gave a shriek. "My glasses!"

Palamedes shook himself into awareness. Will came into focus, replaced his battered glasses. His pale, wrung-out eyes were full of concern.

"You were screaming," he said simply, never taking his eyes off Palamedes.

"I-I was?" Palamedes felt his heart sink.

"Yes." Will replaced his pillow by tossing it over onto his couch and settled himself at what little space was left at the bottom of Palamedes'. "You were screaming about killing someone."

_Wonderful._ He'd been shouting out her words for everyone to hear.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No!" It came out too harsh; he didn't want to talk about it. Palamedes had been careful—too careful, almost—with his friendship with Will. They had known each other for nearly four hundred years. They had been friends for two hundred. Never once had Palamedes mentioned his past, mentioned _her_. He maintained a childish belief that if he kept silent about her (if Will didn't know about her), that she couldn't know about him. And if she didn't know about Will, she couldn't hurt him. He didn't want to talk about it.

Palamedes shook his head.

"Well, I think you should," Will insisted. "It would help."

"No, Will. It won't help. It was just a small nightmare. I'm fine."

Will bit his lip anxiously, watching Palamedes and thinking. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." He said it too quickly, and was rewarded with another unsure glance.

Finally Will made his decision, and shrugged his shoulders. "Alright, then."

Wonderful Will. He could be the most intractable, stubborn creature in the world when he set his mind to it, but he possessed an amazing tractability of personality when he sensed it was needed. He exhibited that tractability now, letting Palamedes have his way.

Someone hammered on the door; "It's your manager!"

Will's eyes widened, and he quickly snatched up a pillow and blanket. "I'm not feeling well," he muttered, and disappeared into the bedroom. The door closed a second before the other door opened, and the manager stalked in, uninvited.

"Is there a problem?" Palamedes rumbled, not bothering to hide his irritation. He wasn't in the mood to discuss his or Will's shortcomings with the manager.

"Yes. There is. Would you or your roommate like to explain why somebody was screaming death threats in the early hours of the morning?" The manager's eyes scanned the room, searching for Will; he looked questioningly at Palamedes.

"Will's unwell," Palamedes said curtly. "As for the death threats…I suffered from a small nightmare. I apologize. It won't happen again."

"It had better not. I've had far too much trouble with you two! The dog, the car, your rent, your roommate's noise"—

"Will's not made any noise!" Palamedes objected.

"—laughing loud enough to be heard clear to the stairs last night! And now this! If you both can't be quiet and peaceful, you'll have to leave. You hear me?"

"Yes."

"That was an eviction warning, in case you didn't catch my drift."

"I'm aware. I apologize, and we'll both try to do better."

"You had better." The manager stalked out, not bothering to wish Palamedes a good day or Will better health.

A door creaked open behind him. "Is he gone now?" Will asked, peering around the corner. He was flushed enough that if he hadn't been well just five minutes earlier Palamedes would have wondered if he didn't have a fever.

"Yes. We have—"

"We have an _eviction warning_. I heard." Will crossed the room to the kitchen, his heavy tread a warning of the coming storm. He yanked flour out of the cupboard, eggs from the fridge, and dishes from the dishwasher. "He ought to just go away. Leave us alone. What does it matter if you had a nightmare?" He dumped several cups of flour into a dish and broke several eggs in an unnecessarily violent manner. "It wasn't that loud."

"I woke you, Will. You never wake up—I've seen you sleep through thunderstorms, battles, everything. Don't bother telling me it wasn't loud."

"Well, you were having a nightmare!" Will stirred the batter he had made angrily before slamming the dish on the counter and pulling out a pan. It clanged loudly against the others in the cabinet, and Will's next words were pure acid. "Oh, wait. I forgot. We have to be _very silent_. No banging, clanging, clashing, yelling, screaming, laughing, barking, or car starting. Goodness _mercy_, soon we won't even be able to talk!"

Palamedes bit back a grin; Will Shakespeare, despite his stubbornness, was a naturally mild person: but just as he possessed an amazing tractability of personality when needed, he also possessed a fiery temper when provoked. Years of friendship had taught Palamedes that fact, and the warning signs. Their manager had apparently not caught on yet, as he insisted on feeding coals on the fire that was Will's temper; Palamedes was surprised that Will hadn't yet cracked and inflicted a nasty fungus on the man.

"You have to drive the cab, don't you?" Will asked abruptly, switching the subject as he looked up at Palamedes. His pale face was flushed, his eyes bright with fury, and Palamedes half-hoped that the manager would come up and get what was coming to him.

"Yes. I'll leave in a moment."

"Don't think I'm trying to get rid of you!" Will said hastily. "I'm not. I just…oh, I hate him!"

"I know." Palamedes clapped a hand on Will's shoulder as he walked by the smaller man. "Just bear with it. Things will sort themselves out, hopefully."

Will nodded miserably.

Palamedes grabbed his coat. "I've got to work later tonight to make up for ducking out of that shift when I went to get Flamel."

"Alright. I'll wait till you get back for dinner."

"You don't have—"

"I'll wait."

* * *

London was a busy city, and Palamedes got back even later than he had meant to. His clock read nearly one in the morning when he finally pulled the cab into the parking complex. It was raining again, though not nearly as strongly as it had been when he had hurried back from the pizza place the night before. The previous night's rain had been the kind of rain that set the stage for a murder or a fight; this rain was a slow, sorrowful patter, like tears falling on the pavement. It fell softly, without thunder or lightning. It just fell, dripping down the building walls and windows with silent persistency.

The apartment halls were dark. No one stirred behind the thin wooden doors. The only sound was the thud of his boots against the rough carpeting.

1…2…3…

Palamedes counted the floors impatiently, cursing their fifth floor apartment and the slow elevator system. He had complained once or twice, but nothing had been done and he had decided it wasn't a battle worth picking.

4…5…

The doors slid open, revealing the dark fifth floor hall. It was the dingiest, dirtiest, ugliest hall in the apartment building; nobody save Will and Palamedes lived there, which was the only reason why they hadn't objected to the questionable living conditions.

"_It's worth the slow wait, to have some peace and quiet,_" Will had said happily when they first moved in. Despite the disgusting quarters, Will had been elated with the location. Immortality often depressed Will, and he rarely ventured out into the hustle and bustle of the world. Palamedes was fond of the quiet as well, and only his job kept him from hiding. He kept his job because he possessed an insane fear of living off an ever decreasing banking account. It made him feel insecure, like he could lose his way of living at any moment; the cabbie job kept them afloat of their expenses, if only just.

Palamedes stepped out of the elevator. His heart stopped.

Books and other objects lay scattered across the dirty, carpeted hall. The shattered remains of a wooden bookcase were spread out, jagged edges sawing eerie silhouettes into the darkness.

Palamedes advanced down the hallway, counting the doors, trying to figure out which apartment had been ravaged. They were all empty—there shouldn't have been anything in them.

500…501…502…503…504…

"_505! Look at that! It's the same backwards as it is forwards—you'll never have to worry about forgetting the number." _Will had been amused by the apartment number they were assigned.

The door to apartment 505 hung swinging on its hinges.

"Will?" Palamedes' deep voice rumbled through the dark main room. His awakened senses made his eyesight perfect, and he could see clearly in the darkness. What he saw made him sick.

The two couches were tipped over and had been smashed into bits, the upholstery ripped apart and the filling was scattered everywhere. DVDs littered the entirety of the room, as if someone had tossed them about. One of the windows was shattered, the glass lying, sparkling, on the floor.

"Will?" Silence. Deep, echoing silence. A DVD crunched beneath his foot as he stepped forward.

His heart thumped in his chest; his breath came in short bursts. _Where was Will?_

He moved on through the apartment, searching each room, calling Will's name.

The unused bedroom (they had to buy at least one bedroom, despite both liking to sleep on the couch) was a disaster. There was no bed, as they had never bothered to get one; all that remained was boxes that they had never unpacked. Those boxes had been split open. Their contents were spilled out over the floor, gutted. Palamedes caught sight of a dictionary that had been pulled from the wreckage: pages had been ripped from the book, and the wind that blew in through the broken window set them fluttering. Rain stained the carpet a dark color. In the eerie darkness, the wet pool looked like blood. _Perhaps it was_. Palamedes shoved the thought aside, and hurried to search the bathroom.

Whatever in the bathroom was able to be broken had been. The shower curtain was ripped in half, and the contents of the medicine cabinet had been scattered everywhere. A pipe had broken somewhere, and a steady stream of cold water was issuing onto the equally cold tile.

When Palamedes returned to the living room and the side kitchen, he found Gabriel.

The Torc Madra was lying near the ruined couches, in a pool of blood. Gabriel didn't move when Palamedes stroked his fur, though he whined softly. Palamedes knew better than to harbor any hopes for the dog's recovery…and he wondered what had happened to Will, to put the protective hound in such a state. Will was nowhere to be found.

The kitchen was as ruined as the rest of the apartment. Pots and pans littered the floor, and the spices had not only been pulled from the cabinets, but had been poured out onto the floor. They reeked, filling the kitchen with their contradictory scents. Both the refrigerator and the freezer had been left open, and their contents spilled out to mingle with the spices.

Palamedes tripped on the remains of the table. Like the couches and the wooden bookshelf in the hall, it had been hacked to pieces with a sharp weapon. Palamedes tried not to think what.

"Will?" he called once more, his voice shaky. "Will?"

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself and pull himself together. And he smelled it. Cinnamon. It was barely noticeable beneath the heady scents of the more popular spices, but it was there. He spun around, searching the kitchen for the source. He found it lying on the surprisingly clean counter. A space had been cleared amidst all the ruin, and there—all alone—was a bottle of open cinnamon.

He picked it up with shaking hands and the beginnings of nausea in his stomach. Cinnamon. _Her._

Another blast of cold air raced through the room, and a piece of paper floated up into the air, set spinning by the wind. Palamedes caught it.

He could hear his heart beating irregularly in his ears; it blocked out Gabriel's low, pained whines. He could barely breathe; a lump of nauseating bile was rising in his throat, and the smell of cinnamon clogged his nostrils. His chest heaved as he tried to suck in air. Black dots popped in and out of his vision, and the tunnel vision began to set it.

_Please. Please, no. _

The note was written in Will's rather messy Edwardian hand. It took him several more tries than usual to read it.

_**If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.**_

A Shakespeare quote. One of Will's quotes. Time slowed, and Palamedes felt his heart stop.

"_You'll pay! I'll kill you!_" Her words came back to him, reverberating in his tortured mind. "_You'll pay!_"

Not Will. Anyone, anyone, anyone but Will. Palamedes wanted to scream, but the nausea was too strong, and he couldn't find his voice. Not to scream. Not to cry.

"_You'll pay!_"

He was paying. He was paying dearly.


	18. REWRITE: Chapter 3

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott.**

* * *

He slammed on the acceleration as the loud taxi motor roared to life. He reversed, and nearly spun out of control as he turned into the heavy London traffic.

She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to make him pay. _She had Will. _

Palamedes had always imagined that she would find him and kill him slowly; that she would torture him, telling him how much she hated him. He had feared for Will, feared that she would, somehow, use Will against him; he had never thought that she would take him.

_She had Will. _

The rain—still soft, still weeping—pattered down on his windshield. He drove on, not bothering to turn on the headlights or activate the windshield wipers or the blinkers. He cursed every car in the London traffic as he sped through the busy streets. He ran lights, made illegal turns: all in a daze. The raging inferno of anger and fear burning in his chest made him unable to focus, and he barely heard the shouts and honks aimed at him and his reckless driving.

_She had Will. _

The car jolted as he ran over a pothole, and he fell forward, slamming into the steering wheel. He had forgotten his seatbelt; he didn't fix it. He slid back into his proper position, once again slamming his foot on the acceleration pedal, pushing it to the floor and driving the car to its limit. The engine roared loudly, a constant, thrumming reminder of Will…

_She had Will. _

Palamedes' could see his hands shaking on the steering wheel. He felt numb, almost drunk (except that drunken men experienced that warm, fuzzy feeling of joy, and all he could feel was fear, pain, and anger).

_She had Will. _

What would she do to him? The question entered his numb, enraged, frightened, unfocused mind for the first time since he had seen the note, and the answers were numerous and terrifying; images of her countless torture devices rose to the front of his memory, and he slammed on the brakes. The high pitched squeal of his tires fighting for traction on the slippery streets sounded like a scream.

Palamedes buried his face in his trembling hands.

No. Not Will. She couldn't do that to Will. She couldn't. Not Will.

Not Will.

People shouted and honked their horns, the commotion blaring out into the night, reminding Palamedes that he had stopped in the middle of the street. He didn't care, but he couldn't waste the time that a ticket or an arrest would cost. Not with Will in her power.

_She had Will. _

He drove forward again, fighting the nausea in his stomach and rising up his throat. He swallowed, working it back down, refusing to be sick, refusing to give in to any more weakness.

Another pothole made the cab jump, and Palamedes very nearly was sick; his stomach twisted, and only willpower kept him from vomiting.

_**If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.**_

She was doing this for revenge. To get back at him for what he had done so long ago. Palamedes crumpled the letter—he had never let it go—in his large hand. The crackling sound filled the interior of the car with a noise like bones breaking, and the paper folded in on itself and Will's shaky words like a body curling in around a wound. It was all he had to go on.

_She had Will. _

Where had she taken him? He tried to think, to focus past the horrific memories of their ravaged apartment. Where? But his mind wouldn't work. He couldn't even eliminate places where she wouldn't take him.

_She had Will. _

With a crash that crumpled the black taxi's hood and sent Palamedes flying forward onto the dashboard, the car slammed into something solid. Palamedes' vision tunneled for a moment, and he pushed himself away from the dash, massaging his burning chest, relieved that he had taken the airbags out of the cab. What had he hit?

He forced the door open, staggering unevenly out into the now heavy stream of rain that poured down on the world like a waterfall of tears (that he couldn't cry, no matter how desperately he wanted to).

A closed gate stood before him.

* * *

It was a sooty, rusted structure, dented all over from what seemed to have been clubs. Rusty, disintegrating hinges were slowly falling away from the edges of the gate, though they were not so far gone that they had not been able to withstand the force of Palamedes' collision. The metal surface reeked of oil, which was embedded along with caked dirt in the pitted scrapes—claw marks, Palamedes told himself. Paw prints marked the places where dogs, or something worse, had bounded forward and pounced up against the gate. It was a gate scarred by battle, and as the thought crossed his mind Palamedes realized where he was.

He was in the junkyard. He must have unconsciously driven toward it in his distress; his old home. Their old home.

Their old home. It brought back the second pain—not in his chest, but in his heart—and magnified the losses he had suffered.

_She had Will. _

_ She had Will. _

He slid back into the cab and hit the button he had installed on the dashboard. Nothing happened. The collision had completely ruined the front end of the cab, and the wiring for the button must have been damaged in the wreck. He got out once again and tried to open the gates by hand.

They opened slowly, unwillingly, with difficulty. They had never been designed to be opened from the outside, or by force. The button on the dashboard had been the most common way of opening them, but in the case of an emergency Will had always been equipped with a button on the computer panel inside the shack that would do the job. Palamedes forced the gates open anyway; he had to get in, though he didn't know what he would find…if there was anything to find. He had to go back to the shack. He had to see it again, if only to remind himself what he was fighting for.

Memories of Gabriel flitted through his mind as he walked through the narrow path, winding his way through the labyrinth that the large Torc Madra had guarded. He had been unable to do anything for the poor dog, and by the time Palamedes had left the animal had gone quiet and still. It hurt, losing him; Will had been so attached to Gabriel, and losing the Torc Madra felt like losing Will once again. The idea of what he would have to say to Will when he found him was painful. But he would say it, because he would find Will, and Will would deserve to know when Palamedes found him.

"I'm sorry, Will," he murmured, amazed at the forlorn sound of his voice in the dark alleyway path. It was the cry of a child when their world had collapsed, and it was a tone that should never have been in his voice. But it was; Will was gone, and the bulk of Palamedes' world was gone with him.

He had never stopped to think about it, yet it was true. Everything he cared about had, in the past two hundred years, come to center around the Bard. Everything he did had, in the thirty years since they had built the junkyard, been aimed at Will's happiness: those actions that had pleased the intelligent, eccentric immortal had always been the best, and those that had made him miserable had pained Palamedes as much as Will. That was how it had been, slowly creeping up on him without his notice; now he was acutely aware of it.

Slowly, slowly, the center of the junkyard came into view. Nothing had been moved since the night that he and Will had left. The cars still milled about in the mucky yard, unfixed, covered in oil, scratches, and soot; the potholes, long abandoned, still exuded the smell of things that ought to have died a long time ago. The shack stood alone—rusty, mildewed, and dirty as it had always been, its door hanging slightly on damaged hinges.

With a flash like lightning, Palamedes saw the door of the apartment as if it was reflected in a mirror before his face. He saw the swinging door, the mess within. He shook his head, pushing it away. He couldn't think about it, couldn't stand to think about it.

The stairs creaked beneath him as he climbed, and the floor creaked as well as he entered the shack. It was dark, and without light it looked like a haunted house. (In a way it was, except that the ghosts were his own memories).

The shack reeked of cinnamon. Palamedes' eyes watered, and he coughed; he had to blink furiously to clear his eyes, and perhaps the smell was not so bad as that, but he didn't question it. He groped along the wall for the light switch, and finally found it. He flicked it on.

Everything was dusty, though Will had cleaned it before leaving. Will hated mess (which Palamedes had never failed to find amusing, as the Bard refused to touch water if bathing was mentioned), and before they had left he had sent a sweeping cloud of yellow through the small shack, leaving it sparkling and filled with the citrusy smell of lemons. That smell still lingered, merging with the sharp spice of cinnamon and the musty scent of dust.

Sitting upon the table, laid in an aesthetically pleasing manner upon a thick volume, was a bouquet of flowers. Palamedes stepped forward to investigate.

The bouquet was made up of daffodils, though the color was lab-created: they were a bright, lemon yellow. A bunch of cinnamon sticks were nestled into the center of the bouquet. Both the cinnamon sticks and the bouquet were tied with black ribbon.

Palamedes lifted the bouquet gently, and something sparkled on the outside ribbon as it caught the light.

Upon closer inspection, Palamedes found that it was a dog whistle. He recognized it instantly; it was Will's. When they were first invented, Palamedes had bought one as a gag gift for Will; the English immortal had been taken with it, and it had become his favorite "toy." While he never used it, he had always used to tease the Torc Madra that if they misbehaved he would, and every once in a while he would pretend to blow it, though they were never convinced, and therefore never obeyed.

Palamedes put the whistle to his lips and blew. No sound came out; no dogs answered the silent call. Tears rose to his eyes, and he blinked them away as he put down the whistle and the bouquet to examine the tome that lay beneath.

It took his breath away.

Shakespeare. She had placed a volume of Shakespeare beneath the bouquet.

It was an edition with a picture on the cover, and Palamedes' heart twisted as he saw it. The Shakespeare on the cover wore medieval clothing and lacked the large glasses that Will always wore, but it was still him: the features, though monochromatic, where still the same. He looked so stiff, so formal. People who thought they could know Shakespeare from his picture—people who analyzed every portrait ever made and said they could tell who he was from them—were wrong.

More memories came flooding back as his hefted the book.

"_Oh, goodness. This is heavy! Who, pray tell, was the idiot who wasted his entire life writing this?_" Proud as he was of his work, and much as he enjoyed quoting himself, Will had loved the chance—and never passed one up—to poke fun at his life's work. He had never tired of throwing out comments about the "_stiff, lazy speech_" and the "_tiring monologues_." When it came to insulting Shakespeare, Will was better than most high school students.

Paper crinkled against his fingers, and Palamedes turned the book over. There was a note taped to the back.

_**Page 1616**_

Once again, it was Will's handwriting. Once again, it was shaky, making Will's messy scrawl even harder to read—his hand had trembled when he wrote it.

The lack of commas (which was the strongest evidence of it being Will's handwriting, as he never inserted commas in page numbers) drew attention to the number, and it struck fear into Palamedes' heart.

1616. The date of Shakespeare's supposed death. The date that Will had chosen. ("_I don't know why I chose that date, exactly. It was fun: 1616. So even. I couldn't resist. I was 52, more than old enough to die, anyway_").

What was she saying? Was Will going to die? He refused to ask himself if he were already dead.

He turned to page one thousand, six hundred and sixteen. A photograph fell out and landed face down on the dusty floor.

As he bent to retrieve it, it was his own hieroglyphic writing that rush up to meet him.

**1977—July?**

Beneath it, in Will's normal handwriting (messy, yet tidy in its own way):

_**September**_

Palamedes turned the picture over.

He recognized it immediately; Francis de Saint-Germain had taken it over thirty years ago. The content was bad, and the picture was grainy, fuzzy, and poorly taken. But the content was priceless.

In the picture, he was leaning against the taxi cab, his foot dangerously close to an oil can. The Torc Madra—all of them—were gathered around, red eyes gleaming. Will was there as well, crouched down by Gabriel, touching his nose to the Torc Madra's wet snout. Both Palamedes and Will were laughing at something.

It had been taken when they weren't looking. It was one of three pictures—the second, Palamedes remembered (though it wasn't included), showed Will covered in car oil from the can that Palamedes had accidentally knocked over, and the Torc Madra barking enthusiastically as Palamedes laughed at his disgruntled friend; the third was of Will dumping the remains of the can on Palamedes' head. But the first had always been Palamedes' favorite. It was special, and Francis had given it to him as a family picture.

"_Every family needs a family picture. It goes in the photo album, or on the mantelpiece, for when times get rough. It reminds you of what you have when you have to start fighting for it._"

For a moment, Palamedes managed to feel a rush of gratitude toward _her_: she had, meaning to pain him, given him something good. The picture reminded Palamedes of what he had, and of what he stood to lose. It strengthened his determination not to lose Will. It strengthened his determination to find him.

But why was the picture there? She loved to cause distress, but never without a greater goal. She wasn't the kind of woman to put things there simply to hurt. It must hold some sort of clue.

But it was just a picture. Gabriel was gone, Will was gone, and Palamedes was clueless. He turned it over and over, trying to find something that would give him a hint, something he hadn't yet noticed.

And then he realized what it was.

The picture itself was useless. Francis had snapped it in a moment of whimsy. The contents of the picture were of no value.

She wasn't leading him to anything the picture could show him.

She was leading him to Francis.

She was leading him to Saint-Germain.


	19. REWRITE: Chapter 4

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

** This chapter has seen a lot of changes. Here are the major ones:**

**1. Francis and Joan-I've attempted to flesh out their characters in this chapter, and to give them a little more "screen time," so to speak.**

**2. Dialogue has been added in copious amounts. I've tried to keep it as IC as possible, especially on Palamedes' part, which meant that some of the dialogue from three years ago has had to be cut or drastically changed (and while that's true throughout this piece, it's especially true here).**

**3. Time management-one of the major flaws in this chapter was a terrible sense of time management on my part. I've done my best to fix that, but that means that the end of this chapter in particular was greatly affected. **

**Please enjoy! **

* * *

_Knock, knock. _

Palamedes hammered once, twice, on the door of Francis de Saint-Germain and Jeanne d'Arc's newly renovated home. The trip from London to Paris had taken several hours, and by the time he had managed to compose himself enough to get on board a train without getting arrested, and then make the trip, it was almost noon. The sun was hot, and Palamedes' hand burned from where the metal gate had scorched his hand when he had carelessly yanked it open.

After several minutes, the door opened and Francis stood there, a confused look on his face.

"Palamedes? What are you doing here? Not that I'm unhappy to see you, but generally you—"

"Where's Will?" Joan asked as she peered around the corner of the kitchen and saw Palamedes standing alone.

"She has him." Palamedes realized then how strained, tense, and insane his voice sounded.

"Who?" Joan asked curiously, anxiety beginning to shimmer in her grey eyes. But Francis paled instantly.

"No," he breathed. "Sh-she found you?"

Palamedes nodded. "She found me…and figured out how best to hurt me."

"How best to hurt you?" The anxiety in Joan's eyes was edging into her voice, and she pushed past Francis to grab Palamedes arm. "You'd best come inside and explain."

She dragged him down the wall, telling Francis to make some tea, and Palamedes let her usher him into the living room. He was dazed, memories of when Francis had discovered his past overwhelming him.

* * *

"_Palamedes, why are you frightened of this woman?_"

"_I ruined her life. Irrevocably. She hates me, and she'll hold a grudge until the day someone or something kills her. She'll get her revenge if it's the last thing she does with her immortal life._"

"_Well, I want to know. Everything: what you did, why you did it, and what she might do._"

"_If I tell you, you're not able to tell Will."_

"_Why not?_"

"_You can't. Promise._"

Francis had promised, and Palamedes had told him (albeit reluctantly). He had told him everything.

* * *

Joan shoved him into a chair, and the cup of tea that Francis brought in from the kitchen was soon shoved into his hands.

"Now tell us who has Will," Joan insisted, sitting down next to Francis. She was worried—she loved Will as much as Palamedes and Francis did, and it showed in her eyes, her voice, and her body language as she watched Palamedes.

Palamedes could only shake his head. He didn't have it in him.

"Somebody from Palamedes' past, Joan," Francis said softly, taking his wife's hand in his. "Somebody who's not fond of him."

"Who?"

"The name isn't important," Francis said, and Palamedes was thankful that Francis' secrecy applied to his wife as well. "What matters is that she's…unpleasant. Brutal. Vengeful. She has a grudge, and she won't—"

"She won't hesitate to kill Will if she knows it will hurt me," Palamedes finally cut in, needing to say it himself, if only to finally have it done with.

Joan gasped, and Palamedes saw the tears rise in her eyes.

"But has she killed him already?" Francis asked, hurrying over the sentence in order to keep Joan from hearing as much of it as possible.

"I don't know," Palamedes said weakly. "She didn't give any clue. Just this." He held out the note and the photograph, trying not to look at it and notice that Francis had a copy framed upon his mantelpiece. Francis took both objects and looked at them; Joan glanced at the note and began to weep softly.

"The picture led me to you," Palamedes said. "And the note…"

"1616," Joan whispered. "The year Shakespeare was supposed to have died…oh, Will. Poor, poor Will." She buried her face in Francis' shoulder. Francis stroked her hair with a trembling hand; his face was an open book as waves of pain and horror washed over his features. Vaguely, absently, Palamedes wondered if that was how he looked.

"How long?" Francis' voice was as weak and shaky as the hand he was running through his wife's hair. "How long since you discovered he was missing?"

"About one-thirty in the morning. I…I went to the junkyard, so I didn't get the picture and the clue until around three. It took time to get in a state where I wouldn't get arrested coming here, and then the trip…it's been about ten, eleven hours at least. I don't know when she took him."

Will's clear, cheery voice broke in on the conversation.

"_Hello, Will speaking! I'm not available right now (Gabriel, shush), but I'll contact you whenever I am. Please leave a message with your name (Gabriel, enough!), number, and business. Thank yo—(GABRIEL! NO!)—thank you very much. Ta!_" Gabriel's incessant barking sounded in the background.

Palamedes and Francis jumped, tears in both their eyes, and Joan sighed as she put down her cell phone. She bit her lip to hold back tears as she said, "No answer. I'd hoped maybe he had his phone…"

They sat in silence for a moment, Will's happy voice and Gabriel's frenzied barking still ringing in their ears.

Francis finally stood. "Well, I'll help you look."

Joan rose as well, but Francis shook his head and pushed her back into her seat. "No, Joan. Don't come. You should stay, in case someone comes here. If she was leading Palamedes to us, then she might be planning to make some form of contact, or at least be planning to leave another clue. We can't stand to miss a chance of catching her, in case Will's with her." He bent and kissed Joan, and Palamedes looked away to give them privacy.

"Let's go," Francis said. "Will needs us."

Everything exploded before they had a chance to move.

* * *

A silver shield glimmered around them, and the strong, sweet smell of lavender erased the bitter tang of dust, smoke, and cinnamon.

_Cinnamon._

Palamedes vaulted to his feet, scrambling for purchase among the rubble of Francis and Joan's now newly destroyed home. His awakened senses were blazingly awake, his eyes peeling the dirty air for a sign, ears searching for a sound that he could follow. The scent of cinnamon was stuck in his nostrils.

There! A flash of red.

Rubble flew from underneath his feet as he dashed after the retreating figure, ignoring Francis' and Joan's calls from behind him. They would be fine; Joan's shield has done its job. Will was the priority—the only priority. Will was all that mattered.

_Will._

The name pounded in his ears, matching the erratic beating of his heart as he left the ruins of Francis' home far behind.

_Will._

"_Will…"_

The name was cooed, the voice low but seductively feminine. The sound echoed through the alleyway that Palamedes realized he was running through.

"_There's still time, Palamedes. There's still time. 1616…think, Palamedes…_"

Palamedes fumbled for his sword; his hands shook, and the metal blade hissed jarringly against the scabbard as he pulled it out. His frenzied mind tried to separate her voice from the ravings of his own brain.

1616…what did she mean?

He tried to think as he followed her down the alleyway. A flash of red sparked around a corner, turning into a door. He trailed it, slipping through the door and into the stairway.

"_1616. There's still time, Palamedes. Think…_" Her voice echoed smoothly down the stairwell, and Palamedes ran up, his feet pounding against the hard metal as he followed the low tones of her voice.

"_1616…_" The date, uttered in her seductive voice, reverberated through mall, ringing through the worried voices and screams of the inhabitants who had heard the nearby explosion. Palamedes staggered out of the stairwell and into the center piazza, scanning the stores and levels for a sign of her. People rushed around him, jostling him, and he nearly lost his footing: his senses were overwhelmed—people were talking, shouting, screaming; cinnamon rose above the smells of fast food. Tears blurred his vision, and he wiped them away. People gasped and shrieked as the movement revealed his sword.

"_Hurry, Sir Knight. Time waits for no man…1616…_"

"Annette!" he roared, his brutal voice ringing around the piazza.

A laugh

"_Come find him, Palamedes. He's still alive._"

He's still alive…

"_He's still alive, but his clock is ticking…_"

Another Shakespeare quote.

"Annette!" Palamedes roared again, his sword glinting with green from his aura.

"_1616…_"

A boom, the smell of cinnamon, and silence.

The rushing people around him froze, and something skidded across the floor to land at his feet. She was gone, he knew; she had left her clue and vanished.

He stooped, plucking the small box from the floor. A note was taped to the top, though this time it was in a fancy, feminine hand:

**16:16**

Palamedes tore the note off, crumpling it in his hand and shoving it into his pocket. He ripped open the box and removed its contents.

It contained a digital watch, set to military time. There was no date setting. The timer was on, set to 4:16 in the afternoon. 16:16. As Palamedes ran his finger over the watch, he pressed a button and the timer began to count down.

4:16?

A horrified gasp wrenched itself from his lips.

4:16. In military time, 16:16.

Options rushed through mind, and the one he landed on terrified him.

He had less than four hours.

_Will_ had less than four hours.


	20. REWRITE: Chapter 5

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

** I've tried to key in hints as to who wrote all the quotes scattered about. In case I've failed in that job, there are Shakespeare quotes scattered throughout the last chapter and this one. The one I'd like to draw attention to is the poem, "He that is thy friend indeed." This, if you Google it, shows up as a William Shakespeare quote. If I remember my research from last time well enough, it's popularly attributed to Shakespeare, though I (and probably many scholars) have my doubts. Feel free to Google it and learn more, and share whatever you find with me if you feel like it!**

* * *

"Will…"

He fell to his knees among the frozen people in the mall, his friend's name escaping him in a ragged whisper.

"_Will…_"

The mall floor morphed beneath him, turning into cold, hard stone. The people around him vanished, and the smell of cinnamon rose overpoweringly in the air, almost strong enough to taste.

"_Make use of time, let not advantage slip…_" she quoted tauntingly, her voice floating in the air around him. Palamedes' head snapped up, and anger overran his senses. It blinded him as he rose to his feet. He tried to raise his sword, cursing.

A soft moan issued from somewhere, and the sword fell useless from his grasp as his fingers lost their strength. It clanged to the stone floor, ringing loudly.

"Will!" Palamedes staggered toward the figure that lay slumped—almost lifelessly—on the stone ground. His knees burned as he fell on them once again by Will's motionless form.

"Will!"

Will stirred weakly, shifting slightly, murmuring something that Palamedes didn't catch. He could have been asleep…had it not been for the obvious signs of torture that marred his features.

Long gashes ran across his face and arms, even more gashes and bruising visible past the rips and tears in his clothing. His skin was smudged with dirt and blood. His oversized glasses were cracked and lopsided on his face; his pale eyes fluttered behind the dirty lenses, but no more.

"Will," Palamedes breathed, scooping Will into his arms, holding him closely. He felt for Will's wrist, placing his thumb there and feeling for a pulse.

A pulse. It was there; weak, barely noticeable, but there. For now, that would have to be enough.

"Palamedes?" Will whispered. His voice was raw and unsteady—Palamedes winced , hating the thought of how much Will must have screamed, to make his voice so hoarse and sore.

Palamedes struggled to his feet, never letting go of Will, pulling the Bard up with him. The English immortal slumped in his arms, unable to stand, still mostly unconscious.

"Come on, Will," Palamedes muttered, wrapping an arm about Will's waist and beginning to lift him. "Let's get you out of here."

A low, soft laugh filled the air.

"_Oh, no, Palamedes. That's not allowed—it's against the rules. You have to come and find him._"

Will moaned at the sound of her voice, and Palamedes tightened his grip on the other man as the immortal began to slide to the floor.

"_And hurry, Palamedes. Remember what he said: 'Make use of time, let not advantage slip.'"_

The air about them began to shimmer, and fine sand began to trickle from the ceiling.

"_The hourglass is emptying, Palamedes. Time's running out…_"

Will crumpled to the ground as Palamedes let him go—Palamedes rummaged in his pockets, fumbling for the piece of paper that he had put there, the note with 16:16 on it. He found it, along with a pencil a cab customer had left behind, and began to scribble on it. He didn't look at the paper, focusing instead on his surroundings.

Stone walls. No windows. Damp, dark, filthy, cold.

The flow of sand lessened. His time was running out; Palamedes glanced down at what he had written.

**He that is thy friend indeed,**

**He will help thee in thy need:**

**If thou sorrow, he will weep;**

**If thou wake, he cannot sleep:**

**Thus of every grief of heart**

**He with thee does bear a part. **

**These are certain signs to know**

**Faithful friend from flattering foe.**

He scanned over the words, soaking them in and reminding himself of their supposed origin. Then he slipped the paper into Will's hand; he could feel the Bard's thin fingers tighten around his, holding his hand there.

Palamedes held Will's hand tightly. He knew her magic—he knew that Will would disappear when time ran out, along with everything else. He knew that there was nothing he could do, save be there for Will in what little time was left.

"I'll find you, Will," he whispered, squeezing Will's hand and then searching for his pulse again. Will didn't stir, didn't moan, didn't speak.

The last thing Palamedes was aware of as the last grain of sand hit the ground and everything disintegrated was Will's ever fading pulse beating raggedly against his finger.


	21. REWRITE: Chapter 6

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

** Alright, I have several notes for this chapter: **

**1. Sorry about the frantic updating, but I start work in a week and I'd like to get everything rewritten and up before my schedule gets filled up. **

**2. Many thanks to Trans-Siberian fan, who gave me the idea for this chapter over three years ago-I'm still loving your awesome idea, and your support as I was first writing this fic has never gone unappreciated. (: **

**3. Major story changes: a) once again, time management has had to be dealt with; I spotted several glaring mistakes that have been fixed. b) Hercules' character-he was originally meant to be the Gandalf/Dumbledore/Professor X/Yoda of this story, and as his character developed that just didn't happen. I've attempted to change his dialogue a bit in order to reflect his true character in later chapters. **

* * *

Palamedes' heart beat to Will's fading pulse long after it had faded from against his finger. Every beat that thumped against his chest marked time lost, sand trickling into the bottom of Will's draining hourglass.

The reddish, early morning light shining through the back windshield into the rearview man revealed a man insane. Palamedes could see himself falling apart—shaking; his skin ashen; his eyes pooling over with fear, pain, confusion, and anger.

_A dungeon. _

That was all he had; all she had given him to go on.

_A dungeon. _

He cursed loudly. There were dungeons everywhere; it could be a Shadowrealm, or some old, abandoned ruin in rural England, Scotland, Wales, France, Germany, or any other place. It could be—

Pain seared in his hand, cutting his thoughts off and causing him to remove his hands from the wheel. The car he had snatched from the mall parking lot swerved dangerously and careened off the road, landing with a crash in the ditch, unnoticed in the early hours of the morning in the uninhabited French countryside. The air bag in the steering wheel activated, inflating in his face and making him see stars.

Palamedes cursed again as he shoved the now deflating bag aside. His face and chest were stinging from the force of the air bag and his tightened seat belt, but the pain in his hand was stronger; he focused on his palm, peering at it closely in the half-light of the car.

His dark green aura was blossoming from his hand of its own accord, the warm green color tinged with a hot red about the edges. Seconds later the spicy scents of cloves and cinnamon filled the air.

"Annette," he murmured, staring in confusion at his hand.

The feel of cold metal was burning against his fingers, and a blade formed in his hand as he stared, shimmering against his dark skin—an illusion, not real, spicy cinnamon red rippling along the edges: he recognized it instantly as the sword which had, according to the Archon Cernunnos, ruled Arthur's life; the one that Palamedes himself had foolishly mistaken Clarent for, that he had longed to see again—and had, clutched in Dee's gloved hand.

Excalibur. A perfect replica.

The blade glowed brighter as it finished forming, and a shaky image began to connect itself in the shining metal.

* * *

_A large round table, dusty, unused, covered in scratches left by goblets and cutlery long absent; tall chairs, with old and faded cushions slowly disintegrating with every passing second._

_ A long narrow hallway, hung with tapestries long made indiscernible by decay; torch brackets, still adorned with musty torches long untouched by human hands and falling apart with age. _

_ Wet stairs, mildewed by sullied water that seeped from cracks in the dilapidated stone wall; rusted bars, red and flaking, leaving a deposit on the wet ground that, made liquid by the damp, could pass as blood. _

_ A small dungeon, with dark stains on the uneven floors; dirty stones, unwashed, uncared for._

_ A note clutched in long, slim fingers; a swift glimpse of firm handwriting, and a few lines of Shakespeare. _

Will.

* * *

Palamedes sat in shock, not even feeling the sword fade from his hand, as the dots connected.

Camelot—Will was in Camelot, and she was leading him there. He knew it was Camelot; he had spent too much time gathered around the table with his companions to not know it, and even the dank, dirty dungeon was familiar.

Camelot—Will was in Camelot, and she was leading him on. It would have been a welcome thought if not for the fact that he knew her well enough to know that her only purpose was to let him see Will suffer at her hands.

Camelot—Will was in Camelot, and she had given him—

His heart stopped, and he fumbled for the watch she had left. The timer was on its last few seconds, and Palamedes watched in horror as it counted down: 3, 2, 1, 0. It beeped, and reset to 16:16, where it began counting down again.

Why? Why had she given him a countdown if she wasn't going to use it? Why had it simply restarted? What was she doing?

"Just because she told you where he is doesn't mean she's going to make it easy." Whatever remnants of cloves and cinnamon had been left in the car by the now vanished illusion were eclipsed by the heady scent of incense, and Palamedes looked up.

Standing on the battered hood of the car was a man, as tall as Palamedes, though he wore less clothing—tattered jeans and an equally tattered shirt that, in the watery glow of his aura, seemed to fluctuate between cloth and a lion's skin. A dirty brown beard hugged the man's chin, and dirt covered his bare feet, completing his ragged, unkempt appearance.

"I know," he said, relief flooding him; he knew the man, and he knew that he was immortal.

"I heard about it—your friend…what's his face?" the man said in ancient Greek, stepping off the car and splashing through the muddy ditch with something like childish pleasure. As Palamedes got out of the car he continued his story. "Francis dropped me a call after his house blew: it's a mess (better get that 'gas line' fixed before the government gets on him), but he and Joan are both alright. They pointed me in the general direction, and once I got to the mall—place still reeks of cinnamon, by the way, and the police are crawling all over the building—I guessed that she had to have given you a direction, or you would've come back to check up the Saint-Germains. Beats me where she might have—"

"Camelot," Palamedes said, his voice hoarse. "Hercules, she's taken him to Camelot."


	22. REWRITE: Chapter 7

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

** Major changes: **

**1. Hercules' personality. I've tried to incorporate themes from later in this piece into this chapter in order to make his character more stable. **

**2. I've also done some time management again, fixing up time zones and the correlating dialogue. **

* * *

The shaking he had been attempting to control overwhelmed him, and Palamedes collapsed, burying his face in his hands and leaving the car as unfixed as it had been when he had started. The smell and feel of car oil sparked memories, and those memories washed over him in staggering waves.

_Will, dirty with the same liquid that dirtied Palamedes' arms and hands. _

_ Will, bending over a broken car, sending car parts sprawling over the yard, where Gabriel—poor animal—would retrieve them when they were called for. _

_ Will, slamming the hood of a finished car shut, a pleased smile on his face. _

_ Will. _

Hercules tinkered in the car, attempting to finish Palamedes' work; he made more progress than the knight had, but he failed to stay silent.

"You're losing it," he said, casting Palamedes a pitying glance that reminded Palamedes of just how miserable and insane he must look. "Just losing it—completely. Francis said you were, but I didn't think it was possible. To be quite honest, I laughed in his face: I mean, _you_, go insane? If you didn't do it when what's her face turned you down, I figured you never would. I would have argued my point, but Francis' pretty wife (good catch on his part, if you ask me) nearly kicked me out. Said she expected me to go after you." The sound of his tinkering was sporadic and grating, but it must have been effective, because he got up and turned the car on.

"Let's go."

Palamedes still sat where he was, his face in his hands, trying to get himself under control.

"Let's go," Hercules insisted, grunting as he attempted to pull Palamedes to his feet. "If that countdown just keeps resetting whenever it runs out, we ought to get there sooner than later, in case she's—"

He looked over his shoulder at the watch that Palamedes had affixed to his wrist. "That's one long countdown. When did it start, again?"

"16:16, military time."

"So…"

"4:16."

"She's giving you a time."

"She's counting down from a time, but it just keeps coming back. It's like she wants me to remember the time."

"Maybe it's not a time," Hercules said, pushing Palamedes toward the passenger seat. "She might be trying to get a date across. 4/16—April 16th."

Palamedes shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense. That's not an important date in Will's life, which she seems to be going for in her choice of numbers. And anyway, it's way past that: we're in July. She wouldn't work that far ahead."

"I dunno…I would," Hercules muttered; Palamedes opted to ignore him. His brain was working a thousand miles a minute, attempting to solve the puzzle, refusing to dwell on the option that it might mean nothing.

"It could be latitude and longitude," Hercules said as he put the car into reverse and started backing up out of the ditch.

"Latitude and longitude…" Palamedes repeated, thinking hard.

"Lemme search it up…no internet." Hercules swore, and tossed his cell phone into Palamedes' lap. "Guess we know where we're going first."

* * *

"_Pally?_"

"Hey, Aude," Hercules butted in, taking advantage of Palamedes inability to answer even enough to protest the much-hated nickname.

"Hercules, don't," the young woman—Aude—snapped irately as she shifted her heavy tray to one hip (like a mother with a child) in order to brush a strand of dark hair out of her eyes. When she spoke again, she directed her words at Palamedes. "What on earth are you doing here, Pally?"

"Internet," Hercules said coolly when Palamedes again remained silent.

"Pally, what's going on?" Aude insisted, refusing to acknowledge Hercules' presence.

Palamedes couldn't speak. Aude sighed, and turned to Hercules. "Are you having anything?"

"Yeah; whatever's quick."

"Alright." With a another sigh, and a squeeze to Palamedes' shoulder, Aude swept away. She was gone for a few minutes, in which Hercules regaled Palamedes with his history (which included, apparently, an unhappy courtship that he kept comparing to Palamedes' experience with "what's her face") and some complaints about Aude's cool manner. When Aude returned she had two servings of warm food, one of which she placed almost rudely in front of Hercules before sliding the other one in front of Palamedes. That done, she slipped into the booth next to the knight.

"What's going on, Pally? What are you doing here?"

"She had Will." It had taken the entirety of her absence for Palamedes to find enough strength to utter those words, and he almost cracked when he had to finally say them.

Aude paled, just as Francis had; she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "No," she breathed.

Hercules laughed roughly. "Seems like everybody knew about her, except what's his face."

"Will; and I had my reasons," Palamedes snapped, the bitterness of his failure to protect Will making his heart ache.

"I know, I know," Hercules soothed, slouching in his seat and connecting his phone to the café's wifi. He was typing furiously. "Just…irony…never mind." He cursed as his search result failed, and tried again.

"She's got him in Camelot, Aude, but I'm going to need Aether in order to get in there. You know the defenses—they're the same as Charlemagne had put up at Aix."

"I know, but you've got to know the other elements before you can use Aether, Palamedes."

"I don't have time! I've got to find someone who already knows Aether to come with me."

"Oliver." They all jumped as a tray of desserts landed on the table, and they turned to look up at the new arrival—a young man with sparkling brown eyes and red curls that bounced against his cheek as he sneaked a peek at Hercules' search results. "Oliver knew Aether."

Aude nodded. "He would have helped you."

"It doesn't matter if he _would have _helped me!" Palamedes shouted, slamming his hand down on the table in frustration. I need help _now_!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, chill pill," Hercules interrupted. He tossed his phone to Palamedes. "I got the results: Camelot is 4 degrees, 16 minutes west, so she was giving you a hint, apparently. Now who's this Oliver?"

Both Aude and the young man fell silent; Aude's pretty grey eyes filled with tears, and she looked down at the table; the young man's face went dark with sorrow. Palamedes felt for him—he knew the look: it was the same one he had seen on Will's face when the Bard had told him of what Dee had done to his family; it was the same look Palamedes knew had been on his own face since Will had been taken.

"Olivere," the young man said, "was Aude's brother. He was also—" Tears choked him, and he looked away.

Aude finished: "He was also Roland's companion."

Hercules broke the silence. "You didn't ever tell me about your brother, Aude."

The young man—Roland—glared at Hercules. "It's not a tale we're often fond of telling."

Palamedes shook his head at Hercules when the other man opened his mouth to ask more, and motioned toward the cell phone. Luckily Hercules took the hint and searched up the story, saving the young couple a sad tale.

"I know an Oliver," Hercules said off-handedly as he searched. "Works as a tour guide for the _Roncevaux Experience_."

"The what?" Roland asked confusedly.

"I don't know. Some hammed up acting show for an old battle. I don't watch it; never been, don't plan to go, don't want anything to do with it. It's awful, from what Oliver says. But Oliver's a great guy."

"Call him," Palamedes said quickly. "Call him now."

"He'll be at work!"

"Call him!"

"Alright, alright," Hercules muttered, pulling up his contacts and hitting a name. He pressed the speakerphone button and let the phone ring.

When it was finally answered, the voice on the other end was male and spoke the same dialect of French as Roland and Aude.

"Hercules, I'm between shifts. Make it quick."

Both Roland and Aude paled. Aude buried her face in Roland's shoulder and cried; Roland sat shell-shocked and silent. The name that Aude sobbed out into her husband's shoulder was barely audible above Hercules' loud conversation:

"Oliver!"


	23. REWRITE: Chapter 8

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

* * *

Oliver didn't look powerful. He looked bored. And disgusted.

It had taken Palamedes all of five seconds to realize that Hercules had been kind when he labeled the _Roncevaux Experience _as hammed up. Actors who had either lost or never found their glory (Palamedes suspected the latter) gave exaggerated performances that made the actor in Palamedes shudder. He could hear Will's voice in his mind: "_Well, it's not Shakespeare._"

"Hello!" The bored, disgusted look was gone, replaced by a fake smile and false, cheery voice as the young tour guide pointed out to them by Hercules and identified as Oliver came up to them. Dressed in black jeans, a black t-shirt bearing the words _The Roncevaux Experience_ over the silhouette of a knight on a rearing steed, and a black cap with the same emblem, Oliver didn't look like a knight, especially not the white one he was supposed to be. "Welcome to the _Roncevaux Experience_, the world's only reenactment of the famous battle of Roncevaux Pass." After a quick, stealthy look around, he muttered, "Thank goodness it's the only one."

"Hey, Oliver!" Hercules said loudly. The two men grappled for a moment as Oliver attempted to evade the large arm that Hercules was trying to sling around his shoulders; he lost the battle, and suffered through the hug. "I've got some people for you to see."

Oliver's eyes flitted over Palamedes, and apparently Hercules' texting on the ride over had been about him, because Oliver smiled pityingly, with a mild kindness that reminded Palamedes of Will. Then Oliver's gaze fell on Roland and Aude.

"Aude!" he cried as his sister rushed forward to throw her arms about his neck. She was sobbing hysterically as she stroked her brother's hair and repeated his name over and over. Roland stood not far behind her, reluctant to interrupt but obviously as eager as she was to greet his long-missed companion. After the siblings had had their tears and their laughs, Oliver turned to Roland as he stepped forward.

The companion's reunion was just as touching, as their tears flowed as freely (if not more). They spoke in rapid-fire French, swapping stories: the details of Roland and Aude's marriage, Oliver's various employments, and a few stories that were important to them, but useless in terms of finding and rescuing Will.

Finally Oliver directed his attention to Palamedes. His grey eyes were still filled with tears, but he smiled happily, thanking both him and Hercules profusely.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Palamedes." Oliver's language was as clear and precise as Will's, though he had clearly spent more time in the Americas. He spoke his English with only the slightest French accent.

"The same," Palamedes said quickly. "But I need—"

"I know. Hercules told me you needed me to help find a friend. But he didn't say much else."

"Aether. I've got to get to Camelot, and I need—"

"Of course," Oliver cut in again. "Whatever you need. Anything at—oh, thank you." He trailed off into other waters as a tall, bearded man came up behind him and handed him a book.

"You forgot this at the hill, Oliver," he said.

Palamedes caught a glimpse of the cover as Oliver took the book from the other man. A picture of Shakespeare was on the cover, and Palamedes' heart twinged in his chest.

"I'm sorry about that. As I was saying, anything you need. I definitely owe you something for what you've done for me."

"MOUNTJOY!" A frenzied 'Roland' screamed from the top of a small hill. Oliver winced.

"I'm about to owe you again for getting me out of here. I hate this job."

* * *

Oliver whistled. "Shakespeare." He shook his head, dark waves escaping from his hat. "Shakespeare. Your friend is _William Shakespeare._" He whistled one more time, eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. The look reminded Palamedes of Will, and he realized just how much Oliver—with his kind, mild manner, his humor, and his enthusiasm for all things new, was like the Bard. They would have enjoyed each other's company, had Will been there, he was certain.

"Will you help me?" Palamedes asked weakly.

Oliver nodded fervently. "Yes, of course! I already told you I owe you once, and most likely twice." He grinned mischievously. "I'll owe you a third time if you tell me why _Hamlet_'s so long. It's killing me."

Palamedes smiled wanly. "Will always considered that one his best." A split second later he amended his statement. "Will always considers that one his best."

All four immortals looked at him, not in confusion but in pity. Understanding shone in Oliver, Roland, and Aude's eyes; they too had borne with the pain of referring to loved ones in the past tense.

"That's what I've heard," Oliver said smoothly, continuing the conversation with an elegant grace that marked his previous role as one of the wiser members of Charlemagne's twelve Peers. He stood up from the chair of the café where they had settled to discuss the situation. "Now let's get going: just let me talk to Ganelon for a second."

"Ganelon?" Roland asked furiously, spinning in his chair, his aura sparking. Oliver didn't answer; he was already standing up, waving his cap in the air and hollering at a man who had just entered the small café—_Charlemagne's_. The action earned him a sharp "Respect the merchandise, Knight!" barked at him by the man at the café counter, who obviously took his job much more seriously than Oliver. Replacing his cap, Oliver motioned at a man who was moving through the crowd—it was the bearded man of earlier. He was sweating profusely and thanking a crowd of people who were congratulating him on his performance.

"Fans are going wild," he said as he joined their small group.

"I don't see why," Oliver said, "as you play the traitor. But whatever floats their boat."

"That about sums it up. But if it gets me a bonus I'll take it. What did you want?"

"Can you call Marie and ask her to fill in for me? My phone's about dead. I've got to run—family emergency."

'Ganelon' sighed. "The boss isn't going to like that, Oliver. Marie's awful at your job."

"I know, but this is important."

"Fine, fine, alright, alright. I'll tell her. But the boss isn't going to be at all happy."

Oliver laughed wryly. "If he ever was happy I'd worry about it a bit more. But the day I make him happy is the day I die, so I might as well make him unhappy for a reason."

"Good luck with the family," 'Ganelon' said as he pulled out his phone. "I'll call her on my way back to the performance." With that he was gone; Oliver yelled a quick thanks after him, and then collected his book from the table.

"Alright. Let's go get Shakespeare!" He laughed again, and hefted his volume in the air while shouting something in archaic French that Palamedes didn't hear beyond the sudden screaming that filled his ears and brought him to his knees.


	24. REWRITE: Chapter 9

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

* * *

"Palamedes!"

Through the haze of screaming and pain throbbing through his brain, he could hear someone calling his name and pressing their hands into his shoulders.

"Palamedes!"

In a sudden burst of light the scene before his eyes changed—just as it had in the mall. The ground beneath his knees morphed into cold stone, and the black canvas of Oliver's tennis shoes vanished. What Palamedes saw made him wish that he was dead.

* * *

_Will writhed and scream on the stone floor; she stood over him, her red aura burning around him in a vibrating circle. _

_ "'We have scotched the snake, not killed it,'" she mused in quotation, staring over Will to meet Palamedes' horrified eyes. She smiled. "Hurry up."_

* * *

"Palamedes!"

A heavy object collided with his head, and the scene dissolved in a flash of red and cinnamon; Palamedes saw Shakespeare's picture retreat as Oliver pulled the book away.

"Sorry," he muttered as he helped pull Palamedes to his feet. Roland and Hercules, both of whom had been kneeling by the knight, rose as well, gripping his arms. Aude stood nervously by her brother, wringing her hands and casting anxious glances at the crowd outside the shop, all of whom luckily had failed to notice the knight's breakdown. In the distance, they could hear 'Roland' grieving his companion's death in a sappy, pathetic manner.

"Will," Palamedes gasped, wrenching himself away from Oliver, Roland, and Hercules. He strode out of the café and slipped past the crowd, trying to find a place where he could break down in privacy.

"Palamedes!" It was Aude. Her chamomile aura flared as she gripped his arm; the smell soothed him, sweeping through his tortured brain, giving him time to think. When he looked into her grey eyes, he saw Will's torture replay.

"We'll find him," she whispered. "He'll be alright."

"You saw—?"

"Yes." Her soft voice, with its lilting French accent, was sad. "I did. Some call it a talent, my ability to see illusions. But that isn't the point. The point is—"

The crowd behind them screamed, and they heard Hercules shout: "Whoa!"

Palamedes and Aude spun, cloves and chamomile spiking the air as their auras flared in defense; the crowd parted, scattering in different directions, revealing a tall young man. He was dressed in all in black, and he twirled twin blades in his black-gloved hands. At the sight of him, Hercules' incense-scented aura came to live, followed the Roland and Oliver's, which filled the air with the smells of coriander and ylang ylang.

"Palamedes," the young man drawled, still spinning his swords. "I came to tell you that I had the pleasure of meeting your friend…Will, isn't it? He wasn't looking too good, but—" he blocked a sienna colored blast of Aether from Oliver's direction without even looking—"he'll last a little longer. Until she gets bored."

"Mordred," Palamedes snarled, drawing his sword. "I didn't think I'd see you again."

"I didn't _want_ to see you again," Mordred said casually, pushing back Aude and Roland's blue and brown auric arrows with a blast of black power that sent them to their knees, clutching their ears as sonic energy pressed on their eardrums. Hercules and Palamedes resisted the push, and Oliver's aura glittered in a shield; his black, casual clothing turned into a hauberk and armor.

"And look!" Mordred piped in fake enthusiasm. "Roland and Oliver, the lovely Aude, and Hercules! What a group!" Another bolt of Aether darted toward him; he sidestepped most of it, but winced as it grazed his side. "Good shot, Oliver," he said wryly.

"Wonderful, Olivere," Roland called in French as he struggled to his feet, helping Aude up as well. Both of them sent unexpected ripples of auric energy rushing across the ground. They caught Mordred by surprise, and he lost his footing. Palamedes, Hercules, and Oliver all took their chance; they came from three sides—Oliver from the left, Aether sparking from his hands; Hercules from the left, with a heavy club; Palamedes straight on, hefting his sword. Mordred staggered to his feet, pushing a wave of energy at them. It collided with the blasts of ylang ylang, coriander, and chamomile that the three French immortals aimed at him, and the four waves of power sparked into nothingness. Palamedes took advantage of Mordred's occupation and brought the flat side of his blade against Mordred's head; it rattled the young man, and he fell to his knees.

"Beaten," Hercules said, clamping his hands on Mordred's shoulders.

The defeated immortal stared at Palamedes with spite sparkling in his dark eyes. He raised a hand.

Aude, Roland, and Oliver all raised their hands as well, their auras shining blue, brown, and sienna. Mordred waved his other hand at them in a placating gesture.

"Just delivering a message," he said, tossing a piece of crumpled paper at Palamedes.

As the paper fell into Palamedes' hands, the whole clearing echoed with a high pitched whistle; Mordred vanished, leaving only the acrid smell of black licorice lingering on the air.


	25. REWRITE: Chapter 10

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

** My chosen location for Camelot is, as I mentioned in the last chapter, Malory's Winchester location; it is located in Winchester, in the Great Hall. For the sake of story continuity, I've continued to call it Camelot (as that's what Palamedes would have known it as); I've also chosen to keep the layout of the castle fictional. **

* * *

Palamedes unfolded the paper with trembling fingers; the edges tore with his shaking, and Aude reached out to steady his wrists. When he finally managed to unfurl the paper, his own handwriting stared up at him—smeared, but legible.

"'He that is thy friend…'" Hercules read over Palamedes' shoulder. "Sounds like Shakespeare."

"It is," Oliver murmured from somewhere off to Palamedes' right. "At least many people attribute it to Shakespeare."

Hercules muttered something about an authorship issue, and the sound of the ensuing argument that occurred between the two immortals made Palamedes' head throb.

He scanned the note, searching for anything that might comprise a message; there was nothing—the ditty he had scribbled on the paper was completely unchanged. He moaned, and tossed the note aside.

"Pally!" Aude gasped in horror, and he looked at her. She was pointing toward his hand, her eyes wide and her mouth open. He looked down. Blood stained his fingers.

Aude took his hand in her smaller one, searching for cuts. Roland, however, stooped immediately and scooped up the paper that Palamedes had thrown away. He unfolded it again and turned it over, holding it out to Palamedes.

Blood had been smeared on the back of the paper.

Hercules and Oliver fell quiet, and all four immortals gathered around Palamedes, staring in horror at the bloody smear: it was still wet, and formed only one word.

_**Palamedes**_

The handwriting was shaky and nearly illegible, but even written in blood Palamedes could see the distinctive Edwardian strokes; he recognized the handwriting.

It was Will's.

* * *

The train was crowded for holidays, vacations, and whatnot; the small group of five was forced to squeeze into one row of seats.

"You know, this is far closer to you than I really wanted to be," Hercules quipped at Roland, who was pressed so closely against Hercules side that they looked as if they'd been glued together.

Charlemagne's nephew turned around as well as he could, his eyes narrowing. "Well, I _never _wanted to be this close to you!" he snapped. "So think about how unpleasant this is for me!"

"You're on my foot, Pally," Aude murmured, from where she was sandwiched between the knight and her brother. Palamedes shifted his leg as well as he could, with the result that he bumped into Oliver, who gave a shout of indignation as his volume of Shakespeare dropped from his hand and fell to the ground.

"Page one thousand, six hundred and sixteen," Roland told him as he stooped and retrieved the book, handing it back to Oliver. In the small row, the action meant touching every other person.

"Thank you," Oliver said, flipping open the book and finding his page.

"May I see?" Palamedes asked. Oliver tilted the book toward Palamedes, and the knight could see that page 1616 was, in that volume, right in the center of _Othello_. He smiled, remembering how Will had told him that the part of Othello had been written for him: "_Not that I'd ever accuse you of smothering anybody, but I'll keep the correlation in mind in case I ever make you mad before going to bed._"

"Did you ever finish _Hamlet_?" Palamedes asked, trying to engage in light conversation.

Oliver shook his head. "No; I gave up."

Thanks to the small space, everybody could hear the conversation. Hercules laughed loudly and attempted to reach across the row to elbow Oliver in the ribs. He failed, and ended up elbowing Roland instead. The French immortal was clearly reaching the end of his patience with the mythical hero, because his aura ignited and Hercules backed away with a blistered elbow.

"Okay, I get it. You know, you're not a pleasant traveler."

Oliver laughed. "I forgot how testy you get, Roland." He pronounced the word in a strange way, and it came out sounding like _Roh-lahnd._ "But we have a long ride—try to contain it."

"Great," Hercules groaned, slumping in his seat as well as he was able. "A long ride with Sir Grumps-A-Lot."

Palamedes closed his eyes, trying to block out the incessant bickering that followed. The ride from Roncevaux to Winchester was nearly fourteen hours, and he just wanted to think.

All he wanted to do was to find Will.

To do that, however, he had to get to Camelot.

* * *

After an incredibly long ride, the final bus pulled up to the stop nearest to Camelot. To Palamedes' relief, the only problem they had encountered in the past 14 hours was a medium-sized spat between Hercules and Roland, which had been caused by Hercules' sitting closer to Aude (who had been forced to move into Roland's spot to avoid the two immortals' killing each other) than even the small space required. Both Oliver and Roland had delivered punishment, and when they stepped out into the colder England air, Hercules still looked uncomfortable and Oliver was still smirking.

"Camelot's right there," Oliver said, pointing to the large building nearby. "It's going to be busy; we really ought to wait until evening."

"We should scope it out, though," Aude said sweetly. The only sign of her embarrassment from earlier was the faint pink on her cheeks. Her disposition, which was very similar to Joan's in its sweetness, had never altered. "But that can be done in the evening, when it's a bit less busy. Perhaps we ought to drive around."

Palamedes let them decide; driving was decided on, and a car was quickly rented. Oliver insisted upon taking the driver's seat, as Palamedes "was in no way whatsoever to be qualified to drive, and they couldn't afford to get arrested just now." Palamedes didn't argue, as he knew that if he were just to look in a mirror he would see what Oliver meant; he hadn't slept since Will had been taken—was it really more than 48 hours ago?—and he slipped into the passenger seat in a stupor, trying to sort through his thoughts and emotions.

Seeing Roland and Oliver reunited had been difficult for Palamedes; they reminded him too much of himself and Will. Both he and Roland had the same approach to battle: if it had to be done, do it quickly and efficiently; they were both wildly loyal, intensely attached to their relationships with others. Both Will and Oliver were quieter, more intelligent people; they preferred to avoid fighting, though that was no indication of their fighting prowess, and their loyalty and affection were given in softer manners. Seeing how inseparable Roland and Oliver were reminded him of Will, and of how much he missed him—it seemed to have been far longer than three days since he had last heard Will's bright voice, with its sharp British accent.

As they drove he flipped absent-mindedly through Oliver's volume of Shakespeare, haphazardly reading the lines that Oliver had highlighted. When he ran out of the emotional reserves to do that, he simply stared at the picture on the cover, comparing it with the small photograph that he had tucked into his pocket mere seconds before Francis' house exploded.

"Nice picture," Oliver said softly. "May I see it?"

Palamedes handed it over wordlessly, and Oliver propped it up against the steering wheel so that he could still keep both hands on the wheel as he drove.

"Who took it?" he asked.

"Saint-Germain."

"Which one? The old one, or the rockstar?"

"They're the same person."

"Oh. I didn't know that." Oliver took one hand off the steering wheel so that he could look more closely at the photograph. "He looks nice, Shakespeare. Very nice."

Palamedes nodded. Oliver handed the photograph back, and focused on the road again before he continued speaking.

"He doesn't look like the old pictures. But I guess none of us do. I always enjoyed flipping through the internet and seeing the pictures of me…they never did me justice. But thank you, by the way, for bringing Roland and Aude with you. I wanted so badly to see them, and I hoped that they weren't dead. But there was no way to search for them—I mean, how do you look for a couple from a book? If I'd asked anyone to help me locate Roland and Aude from _La Chanson de Roland_, even the most eccentric academic would have laughed at me."

"I know," Palamedes said. "You're quite welcome. If I'd know you, I would have mentioned you to them. It's a sad coincidence that you and Hercules knew each other for so long without something coming of it."

Oliver smiled, and his eyes flitted back to the photograph, which Palamedes was still holding in his hand. "We'll find him, Palamedes. And her."

"Do you know her?" Palamedes asked.

"Oh yes! By a different name, but I've read enough to know who she is."

"Ah." Palamedes sighed, and rubbed his face with his hand. "It seems the only person who didn't know her was Will. It was…it was stupid of me, to think it would work. But I just wanted him to be safe. I thought—I hoped—that if he didn't know about her, he'd be safe from her."

"Who?" Roland asked, leaning forward between the two front seats. "I don't know this woman. But apparently everybody else does."

"Annette." It hurt to speak her name, but he did. "I destroyed her Shadowrealm a long time ago as revenge for—for something she did. She never forgave me."

"She's also known," Oliver said, swerving to avoid a reckless driver, "as Morgan le Fay."

* * *

The time passed quickly, and they soon deemed it close enough to evening to visit Camelot they pulled into the parking lot and entered the building. Despite the fact that it was nearing closing hours, it was still full of tourists flocking around in the halls, milling about with their brochures, pamphlets, and memorabilia.

"We'll have to wait," Hercules said, laying a hand on Palamedes' shoulder.

"Or not," Oliver said pertly. It's not long until closing hours: I can get us in and keep us in, I believe." His sienna hued aura shimmered around him, and soon he was clothed in the simple clothing of a Camelot tour guide. "This way, ladies and gentlemen. Please stay close, and no touching."

Roland bent his aura as well, mimicking Oliver's clothing; once they were inside, they split into two groups—Roland, Aude, and Hercules took one route, while Oliver and Palamedes took another.

"Keep a low profile," Roland warned as they parted. "No theatrics, Oliver, _s'il vous plait. _They're not stupid—they know their workers, and they won't buy the disguise for long. Palamedes, try to find your friend. We'll try to find Annette."

Oliver nodded, with a quick "_Oui_," and yanked Palamedes down the hall. He made a good tour guide: even in disguise, he pointed out the major aspect of each room—"_Tapestries are centuries old, though not the originals; they were destroyed by a looting army in the 800s and were only replaced when the castle was renovated in the late 19__th__ century_"—in a professional voice that still retained its warmth and friendliness. Although Palamedes knew everything there was to know about Camelot, he found relief in being able to listen to Oliver's voice.

"Find the Round Table," he muttered, when Oliver stopped and gave him a questioning look. Oliver nodded with a quick bob of his head, and the action sent memories of Will and his bright "_ta!_" rising to Palamedes' mind. He sighed heavily.

"Are you alright?" Oliver asked, keeping his voice casual as they walked down the hall, Oliver poking his head into the rooms as they passed.

"No," Palamedes admitted. "You rather remind of Will."

"I'm sorry," Oliver almost whispered. "What's he like, Shakespeare? I mean…what exactly do I do that reminds you of him?"

Palamedes shrugged his shoulders, but eventually spoke. "You're both very intelligent. You're both enthusiastic. There's just something about the way you act that makes me think of him." Words failed him, and they lapsed into silence, save for Oliver's "no, no" as they passed by a room that failed to produce the Round Table.

Finally, stopping beside a velvet rope, Oliver bowed dramatically and motioned into the large, round room beyond. "The Round Table, Sir Knight."

It was different from what Annette had shown him—so different. Everything was in pristine condition—the table was polished, and the chairs had been recently upholstered.

"I could see myself eating a table like that," Oliver said jokingly for the benefit of the nearby crowds. His aura shimmered faintly around him, returning him to his casual clothing, and he now looked like a tourist.

A speaker crackled above their heads, and a cool, male voice proclaimed that "Camelot would be closed to the public in fifteen minutes." It reminded both immortals of the age they lived in, and both instantly starting looking for security. A glint in the corner caught Palamedes' eye.

"Security camera," he muttered.

"_Un, du, trios, quart, cinq…_five," Oliver counted. "Yikes, that's a lot of cameras."

Palamedes' summoned his dark green aura, preparing to short circuit the wires. But Oliver beat him to a solution, and with a blast of ylang ylang, something formed over the cameras.

"Fake picture," Oliver said happily, and as he slipped beneath the velvet rope he turned around and mouthed the words _we're invisible_. Palamedes began to see why Roland had warned against theatrics.

"You should have been a movie producer," Palamedes muttered as they took their hiding places in the large room.

Oliver shrugged. "It didn't appeal to me. Too many people."

Palamedes snorted. "You work as a tour guide!"

"Yes, but I can ridicule those people. They come once, maybe twice if they're hardcore fans (and believe me, no one is). If I work with the same people every day, I have to be _nice_. And let's face it: that's no fun."

Palamedes nodded. "You would be correct."

"You were an actor, weren't you?" Oliver asked, switching the topic onto Palamedes with a fluidity of conversation that must have been what won him so much favor with Charlemagne and the Peers. "I believe someone once told me that you acted."

"I used to."

"Did you specialize in anything?" Oliver whispered, wincing and motioning for Palamedes to stay silent as a bored tour guide poked her head into the room and then switched off the light.

"Shakespearean monologues," Palamedes said as soon as the girl was gone. Outside the room, lights were being flicked off, and the halls were going deadly silent.

"Before or after you met Shakespeare?"

"It depends on what you mean by _met_. We had a brief run in early in 1603. He was writing a play, but didn't say much about it. We barely talked—a few words."

"Like what?" Oliver laughed, and he snorted as he did so. "William Shakespeare, Palamedes the Saracen Knight; Palamedes, the Bard of London?"

"No. More along the lines of 'Mr. Shakespeare, one of my men.' I worked as a guard back then."

"When did you officially meet?"

"1820, in a small, cramped building in a rundown alleyway. We were both on the run from the police."

"What for?"

"Will for running an illicit business, me for using too much violent physical contact in teaching a man not to speak of Shakespeare too lightly."

Oliver snorted again, smothering his laughter in his hand. "That's fantastic."

"What about you and Roland?" Palamedes asked, switching the conversation on Oliver. They needed to wait only a few more minutes; they might as well get to know each other since it was quiet.

"Haven't you heard the story?"

"Of course I have. But they're often wrong, and I'd like the truth."

"Well, for once the official version is right. I laughed at Roland's clothing. He whipped my backside for it. We became best pals, et cetera, et cetera."

Footsteps sounded down the hall, and one last security guard poked his head into the room. He was obviously tired, because he waved his flashlight around the room once or twice in an erratic fashion before announcing the all clear into his Bluetooth. Within a few minutes he was gone, and the castle was completely still.

* * *

No sooner was everybody gone than the castle changed.

A warm, cinnamon scented wind blew throughout the room, making them gag. It left dust and destruction in its wake: the chairs rotted, and the cushions disintegrated; the large table lost its shine, and scratches etched themselves onto the now dusty surface; the tapestries faded, and dirt pooled in the cracks in the stone floor. In a matter of seconds the room they stood in had been transformed.

Oliver swore in French. "That was cool." He went up to the table and swiped his hand across it, picking up a handful of dust. "You'd never guess that it was clean less than a minute ago."

Palamedes ignored him, searching the wall for the small crest that Arthur had placed there millennia ago.

"So, where does my Aether come in?" Oliver asked.

"There's a crest on the wall. If we can find it, you'll have to use Aether to activate it and open up the way to the dungeons."

"The dungeons? Those are down the hall?"

"The official ones. We never used those."

"Oh…"

As they were speaking, a segment of wall gave way, and a dusty Hercules staggered out coughing.

"Not there," he hacked out, motioning back where he had come from (and where Roland and Aude were emerging as well). "Nothing but a tower."

Roland and Aude rejoined Oliver, murmuring in French as Palamedes returned his attention to the wall. He cursed. There was no crest; he searched again and again, but still nothing.

"Maybe she moved it," Hercules suggested as Palamedes pushed a heavy bookcase aside.

"How would you move a crest?" Aude asked skeptically.

Oliver positively guffawed. "You don't. Imbecile," he shot at Hercules.

"My uncle always used to say that the best place to look for something is where is should be," Roland offered as he inspected the table for any deformities.

"So look in the clichéd places?" Aude suggested.

They did, to no avail. Time was ticking, and Palamedes growled in frustration as a second, third, and eventually fourth examination of the entire room came up fruitless. He slammed his hand down on the table, and drew it back with a curse. It was bleeding; the dark liquid spattered on the floor.

Hercules lifted the object that Palamedes had cut himself on. It was a blade, like the one which had appeared in his hands in the car. "Excalibur."

"No," Palamedes said, taking it from him. "Clarent; another illusion," he added, as he saw the now familiar cinnamon red working its way along the edges of the blade.

He held it up, waiting for it to reveal Annette's newest hint. Nothing happened, and they stood there for nearly thirty second staring at the unresponsive metal before Aude gave a cry.

"Is that it?" she asked, pointing at the hilt. They all peered at it.

"I don't think so," Hercules said as they stared.

"Do you even know what we're looking for?" Roland snapped irately.

"What does it matter?" Hercules retorted. "We already know it's supposed to be on the wall!"

But Palamedes shook his head. "She's moved it. Aude's right; this is it."

"DANG IT!" Hercules yelled. "I _hate _it when others are right! I'm _NEVER _right!"

"Shut up!" Roland and Oliver hissed. Aude put a finger to her lips, and Palamedes glared; once Hercules was silenced, Palamedes handed the sword to Oliver.

"What do I do?" the French immortal asked, waving the sword as he spoke and narrowly missing Hercules, who shouted a curse and was silenced again by Aude and Roland.

"Let some of your power leak into it."

"Oh, wonderful." Oliver made a face as he turned the blade over in his hands. "Great. I really like that idea. Surrender my power to a sword that's not even real and is under the spell of a tyrannical lunatic. Love it."

Despite his arguments, however, he allowed a little sienna colored power to drip from his hands onto the blade, and the sword flew from his hands as if from a catapult.

"Follow it!" Hercules yelled, but the sword stayed in the room, merely attaching itself to a portion of the wall, where it shimmered and disappeared. The wall soon followed, revealing a passageway. "Or follow the passage," Hercules muttered. "Whatever works."


	26. REWRITE: Chapter 11

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

** The only changes in this chapter are basic rewrites and some added dialogue. **

* * *

So close. _He was so close._

The words throbbed in Palamedes' brain as he led the way down the hallway. Everything except Will vanished from thought; nothing else mattered, and even the other immortals with him were beneath his notice. He barely heard the strange cry that reverberated in the hall behind him; he barely felt the strange wind that whipped about him in the dark passageway as if an opening had let it in; he barely smelled licorice, and would have ignored everything if it hadn't been for the flat edge of a sword slamming into his knees and sending him sprawling.

"Hey," Mordred stood over him, his swords flaming with black fire. Palamedes surged to his feet, casting a glance behind him to where the other immortals stood—or where they should have been.

"Oh, yes!" Mordred laughed. "They encountered a little trapdoor, that's all. Nothing to worry about. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I wanted it to be just you and me."

Palamedes drew his sword and gripped it tightly. "Fine."

Mordred chuckled. "Alright then. Do I have to tell you to bring it on?"

Both men charged.

Their swords connected in a spurt of fire. Mordred's blades coursed with black fire, the flames surging down Palamedes' blade as well; the hilt burned against Palamedes' hand. The high scream of metal rang throughout the hallway as the two men tore their swords away, preparing for another strike.

Palamedes fought as he had never fought before. Mordred was the only thing standing between him and Will; Mordred was the only enemy that needed defeating. Anger clouded his vision and his judgment, and he swung wildly, not thinking, hoping to feel his blade connect with flesh.

But Mordred was good. He fought with a prowess that Palamedes had not expected; the young man deflected every one of Palamedes' blows, and often managed to slip in a bolt of auric energy as he backed away. The advantage was with Mordred: he was rested, well fed, and triumphant; Palamedes had not slept since Will's disappearance, had not eaten since the half-touched meal in Aude and Roland's café, and was defeated (physically, mentally, and emotionally) by the stress of Will's capture.

Palamedes' and Mordred's blades connected once more, metal screeching, and Mordred's black aura roiled off the young man's blade in coils that wrapped around Palamedes, enveloping him, paralyzing him.

"Beaten," Mordred said smugly, echoing Hercules' statement from the earlier; he brought up his weapon up in a move that sent Palamedes' sword twisting, nearly falling out of the knight's stiff hand.

"Not yet." Palamedes grunted. He summoned his aura—the only thing not paralyzed—and sent his favorite spell (he remembered Will with a pang as he did so; the Bard had taught it to him) at Mordred.

It worked. An invisible force pressed the young man into the ground. He crumpled slowly, pushed down as if he bore the weight of the earth. As he struggled to evade the pressure of Palamedes' spell, the black cloud about Palamedes vanished and the knight stepped forward. He brought his sword down in a killing stroke that, at the last moment, he manipulated into a stunning blow. Mordred went limp and fell to the cold stone floor. (_Will had never approved of killing_).

Leaving Mordred's still form sprawled in the passage, and the other immortals to their own devices, Palamedes pressed on, searching for the stairs that he had seen in Annette's illusion. The corridor was long, with no turns, but it stretched on in what seemed like an endless strip of stone.

After what seemed like an eternity (and with every step he had taken Palamedes' had felt his heart sink a little more), the steps appeared before him: long, cracked, and stooping. Palamedes rushed forward, Will's name escaping from his lips in a ragged whisper.

The stones beneath his feet shifted as he ran, and before he had a chance to analyze the situation the ground gave way beneath him—the stones pulled aside, and he plummeted down.

Warrior reflexes honed over the course of several centuries allowed Palamedes to land like a cat, crouched and on his feet. The impact sent jars of pain running up and down his legs, but it was better than a head concussion, which was a complication that he couldn't afford.

"Palamedes!" Roland and Hercules rushed over from across the large room, which appeared to stretch across the entire length of the hallway above. They helped him to his feet, little as it was needed.

"What happened?" Hercules asked. "I saw Mordred, but he trapdoored us before we could warn you."

Roland winced at the made-up word, but nodded in affirmation of Hercules' statement and muttered something in French that Palamedes didn't bother to listen to.

"Where are the others?" Palamedes asked, rubbing his ankles and checking to make sure that no lasting damage had been done by his fall.

"Olivere is wounded," Roland answered softly, pale with concern, using the more familiar variation of his companion's name.

"Not much!" Oliver asserted from a corner, but his voice was slurred, as if he'd had too much to drink. Palamedes suspected that he'd received the concussion that he himself had been so careful (and lucky) as to avoid.

Aude was kneeling by her brother, trying to convince him to lie down; she nodded at Palamedes, but then returned her attention to Oliver. She was joined by Roland once the French immortal had realized that Palamedes did not need anything from him.

"What happened?" Hercules demanded again, trying to worm the information out of Palamedes. "Did you deal with Mordred?"

"Doesn't matter," Palamedes said. He retrieved his fallen sword and headed toward a passage that opened up out of the wall. "Where does that lead?" He motioned at it with his sword.

"We don't know," Hercules admitted.

"We were a bit preoccupied with figuring out what was wrong with Oliver," Roland put it.

Palamedes sheathed his sword and headed toward the passageway; Hercules followed, but Palamedes held out his hand, stopping him.

"Don't come. Get Oliver out and to a hospital—it looks like there's another passage heading toward the front of the building—"

"Whoa!" Hercules interrupted. "Roland and Aude can get Oliver out. I'm coming with you."

Aude's soft voice entered the conversation, siding with Hercules. "I agree; when you find Will, he's not likely to be in any state to walk if the illusions Annette's shown you are true."

"I can carry him!" Palamedes snapped.

"And risk putting him in more danger when you don't have anyone to cover you!" Aude insisted. "You can't fight and carry him, Palamedes."

Palamedes ignored her, peering into the passageway and trying to see if there was any immediate danger ahead. He knew he would have to concede to Aude's way of thinking eventually—he couldn't risk Will getting hurt anymore.

"I agree with Aude," Roland said. "You should bring someone with you. But it should be me: I know how to use a sword."

Hercules shook his head, his temper and competitiveness with the French immortal obviously rising. "No. I've got my club, and I know some magic."

"Yes, well, magic can go astray," Roland pointed out. "If you miss your mark, you could hit Palamedes or Will."

"The same could happen with a sword."

"Not as easily."

Hercules opened his mouth to retort, but Aude inserted herself into the conversation again; this time her voice, though its volume never rose, was stern.

"Both of you go. You might both be needed."

"But Olivere—" Roland began, but Aude shook her head. She was already on her feet, and was guiding her concussed brother to his.

"I can get him out. He can walk; all he needs is a guide. We'll take the passageway Palamedes suggested. I'm sure we can get out on our own."

Her husband hesitated, torn between love for his wife and his companion, and his conviction that Palamedes needed him. He finally went over and kissed Aude, and clasped Oliver's hand tightly. Then he turned to Palamedes and Hercules.

"Let's go."


	27. REWRITE: Chapter 12

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

* * *

The three immortals raced down the passageway, following the cold rush of wind that was issuing from the end. None of them spoke, too busy ruminating on the events of the past several days. Friends had been made, lost, and regained. Immortals from different cultures, different centuries, different lives had been united in a rescue mission that was hopefully nearing completion. The only thing missing was Will.

Will.

_Will. _

Palamedes had never missed the Bard so much; never, in the two hundred years that he'd been friends with the English immortal, had he known just how much Will meant to him. He'd never stopped to think about how important Will's friendship was; he'd never thought about how, over the past two hundred years, Will had ceased to be a friend, and had become family.

Now he did know—he knew all too well. It had only taken disaster to make him see it.

He rammed into the monster with enough force to send it flying back down the tunnel.

* * *

Wings unfurled, and jagged claws raked against the stone floor. Teeth bared, and a low growl rippled down the passageway, sending the rotten smell of dead meat wafting toward them.

Behind Palamedes, Roland and Hercules skidded to a halt. Auras lit, and metal keened as Roland drew his sword from his sheath.

"Palamedes!" Roland yelled above the roar of the rushing monster. "Go!"

"_Yes, Palamedes—hurry!_" Annette whispered, her low voice reverberating through the passageway.

"We'll handle it," Hercules assured him, swiping at the monster with his club. It missed, and the monster dashed into the weak spot left behind. It screamed as Palamedes' sword connected with its scaly skin. Hercules whooped, and pushed Palamedes down the tunnel. "Just go! She won't wait much longer."

Palamedes ran for it, but not before leveling one more slash at the monster. It screamed again, and this time a severed tail thumped to the floor.

"Way to go!" Hercules hollered, and Roland yelled a victory cry. Palamedes didn't stop, leaving the sounds of battle behind him.

* * *

A stairway appeared as if out of nowhere in front of him, and he dashed up them as quickly as he could. Patches of water spattered the steps, and several times he nearly lost his footing as he slipped on them in his haste.

He finally reached the top—and realized that he had gone too high as he staggered into the old throne room. He tossed a look around the room, and noticed a side stairwell that led downward, branching off of the main staircase; he took it. This staircase was familiar, and when he reached the bottom of the staircase he was no longer following his memories, but a gut instinct.

"Will?" he called as he skidded into a hallway lined with barred cells. His nostrils flared as he searched for the scent of lemons. "Will?"

Palamedes could feel his emotions begin to roll like waves inside of his stomach. This was the place Annette had shown him. Will was here—he was here, somewhere.

775…810…he noticed the numbers scraped into the wall beside each cell. Perhaps Annette had chosen a number that would leave a hint?

_1616. _It was her favorite number in this game of hers; the year that Will had chosen for his supposed death, a number full of dread for Palamedes. It had to be that one.

904…999…

A wall loomed up in front of him, and he slammed to a stop. A look in both directions showed him that he could only go left.

1001…1126…

The numbers began to merge in his head. Thinking and discernment became impossible as his emotions made him feel nauseous.

1339…1500…1564…

Palamedes stopped for a brief moment, leaning heavily against the bars of cell 1564 as he inspected it with more care than the previous ones. But no one was there, and he hurried on.

1600…

He slowed, certain that he was going to be sick.

1610…

He actually had to stop for a moment and swallow down the bile in his throat. "Will?" he called, his voice hoarse and shaky.

1612…

So close. _So close. _

1614…

"Will?"

1616.

"Will!" He looked into cell 1616, and felt his knees go weak. The Bard was slumped on the floor in a motionless heap, and even through the bars Palamedes could see the marks of Annette's torture.

"Will!" The Bard didn't move, and Palamedes received no answer.

"Will!" Palamedes hurled himself at the rusting bars; a sharp zap of energy sent pain rippling up his side, but he persisted. "Will!"

After several more painful attacks on the bars, the rusty red metal buckled and gave way. Reddish debris coated his shoes as he pushed the bars aside and shoved himself into the cell. He staggered over to where Will lay and fell to his knees, overwhelmed by trembling. He found Will's wrist, and searched for a pulse.

It was a long time coming; for several moments, nothing could be felt against Palamedes' fingers, and he began to think that Will was dead.

But no. He was breathing—ever so lightly—and he stirred weakly at the pressure of Palamedes' hands.

"Will…" he wasn't yelling anymore; he was whispering, a soft plea that only Will could hear. "Will…"

For a moment there was nothing but silence, and then, so quietly that it barely echoed in the cell:

"Palamedes?"


	28. REWRITE: Chapter 13

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

** Notes: This was inspired by two of my favorite book "rescue scenes"-_The Lord of the Rings, _and _Eragon_. **

* * *

Palamedes gripped Will's hand, willing him—with every ounce of his being—to wake up. And Will did, slowly. His pale, washed out blue eyes fluttered open, and when he fixed them on Palamedes they glittered with recognition and tears.

"Palamedes." It wasn't a question this time, but a statement.

Palamedes' voice shook dangerously as he managed to whisper, "Who else?" Tears made his vision blurry, and he pulled Will into a tight embrace to hide their presence in his eyes.

The two friends embraced, clinging to each other, unwilling to let go; Palamedes felt Will wince as the embrace rubbed against wounds that would need cared for, and he also felt the Bard shake as he began to cry.

"You came," Will wept into Palamedes' shoulder, clutching at the fabric of Palamedes' shirt. "Why did you come?"

"Did you think I was going to leave you?" Palamedes choked out, trying to soothe the Bard without aggravating the many scrapes, bruises, and wounds that Annette's torture had left.

"No, I knew—I knew you were coming when I got the note. But that's what she wanted!" Will wailed, his shaking increasing as whatever Annette had told him began to force him into hysterics.

"I know, I know," Palamedes said, squeezing Will's shoulder as tightly as he dared. "But she was going to win either way—if I didn't come, if I did come."

Will shook his head, still sobbing, but his next words were unintelligible. Palamedes held the Bard tightly as he cried, and the tears that had blurred his vision when Will first spoke now threatened to spill over; he fought them back. He had to be strong. He had to be strong for Will, who had suffered and borne with so much because of Palamedes' past. He had to be strong for Will, who needed Palamedes more than Palamedes had ever been needed before.

"I'm sorry," Palamedes whispered, the tears that he wasn't crying lurking behind the deep tones of his voice. "I only wanted to keep you safe. I was stupid, Will, so stupid, and I put you in the very danger I was trying to keep you safe from. I'm sorry. So, so sorry."

The two immortals sat in silence, conquering their tears. Palamedes swallowed, breathing deeply; Will hiccupped softly and wiped at his eyes, pushing at his cracked and ruined glasses. When they had both mastered themselves, Palamedes got to his feet, pulling Will up with him. The English immortal's legs buckled and gave way beneath him, and he nearly fell; Palamedes caught him, hoisting him up carefully and holding him upright.

"I'm okay," Will whispered weakly. He was pale and trembling, and some of his worse wounds—Palamedes could see them now: long gashes that were barely healed, if healed at all—were bleeding. For the second time in several days Palamedes' hands were stained with Will's blood.

"Don't lie," Palamedes muttered as he supported Will, moving him carefully toward the entrance to the cell. He tried to push doubts as to Will's health out of his mind, but they were only reinforced when Will didn't even have the strength to step over the wrecked bars by himself.

Will wouldn't be able to take the stairs—Palamedes had no doubt about it. Even with Palamedes' strong arms supporting him, the Bard could barely walk. He pushed the thoughts away again, choosing to focus on the present.

It was needed when the stairs (_the stairs that Will would be unable to climb_) finally loomed in front of them .

Will was breathing heavily, and every limb was shaking. But he moved on doggedly, pushing away Palamedes hands when he made to carry him, ignoring Palamedes' protests. But something would have to be done, Palamedes knew, and it became clear to them both when Will collapsed on the first stair without Palamedes' support.

"I can do it," he insisted weakly when Palamedes tried to convince him to let the knight carry him. He struggled to his feet, using Palamedes' arm like a child using the welcome support of a chair when first learning to walk. He was still shaking, and the next step was only a little better than the first had been.

"I'll be there every step of the way," Palamedes said. They started the climb, inching forward.

Each step sapped Will's remaining strength. Every twist and turn of the winding staircase left him weaker and weaker, and by the time they reached the throne room his pale yellow aura was flickering around him, trying to offer support , to strengthen him where Palamedes could not. But even his aura was failing quickly.

As soon as they left the last step behind them and stumbled into the center of the throne room, Will crumpled to the ground. He was pale and breathless, and Palamedes' heart ached to see him trying not to clutch at his side or show weakness. Will smiled weakly at the knight.

"Camelot," he gasped. "We're in Camelot."

"We are," Palamedes agreed as he pulled Will to his feet again. They made their way out of the throne room and down the hallway. Palamedes tried to disable the cameras as they went, just in case Annette was using them, but he soon stopped in order to support Will with his aura. They walked slowly, and it took forever for them to reach the room where the Round Table was.

Will stopped, staring at the large, circular table; he looked up at Palamedes. "Did you sit there?"

Palamedes nodded.

"You would have sat at Arthur's side," Will said with conviction, and Palamedes smiled at the way in which he phrased it: not a question, but a statement; he was sure.

Once they started moving again, it wasn't long before the large doors of the entrance could be seen. A cool night breeze crept through the crack in the large, wooden doors; both Will and Palamedes sighed with relief, breathing in the fresh smell of freedom.

"Almost," Palamedes breathed, reassuring himself more than Will. Beside him, Will made a weak sound of pleasure at the thought of being so close. "Almost there…"

20 feet…

They limped along—Will was tiring, and the stones in the main entrance room were jagged and uneven: the terrain was difficult.

15 feet…

Will gave a small whimper of pain as they hit a rise and stumbled.

10 feet…

"Leaving? Oh, Palamedes, the play's not over yet."

* * *

They spun, tripping on their tired feet; Will sank to the ground, dragging Palamedes with him, and it was from there that they saw the beginning of the newest arrival.

High heeled pumps flashed a greeting from the bottom of long, slender legs that disappeared behind the fabric of a coal black miniskirt. A clingy black shirt emphasized a narrow, curvy waist. Slim shoulders arched into a delicate neck, which was half hidden by a sheet of brilliant red hair.

"I should thank you." Blood red lips. A small, pert nose. Eyes the same blue as Will's, but infinitely more cruel.

Annette.

"Will has been _such _a lovely guest," Annette purred, reaching out and chucking Will lightly beneath the skin in a flirtatious manner. Her fingers were long and slender, just like Will's—a pianist's fingers, though, not a writer's. Will recoiled from her touch, something like fear shimmering in his pale eyes. "So compliant," Annette continued, tapping Will on the nose. "So quiet; he never complained, he never cried: he was a perfect little angel."

Palamedes made to get up, and his fingers felt for his blade—which, to his dismay and despair, he remembered now was still lying on the cold floor of the dungeon, abandoned when Will had taken precedence. Even as he groped for the hilt of his nonexistent sword, he felt the cool blade of someone else's sword brush against his neck like a whisper, feather light, but deadly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see an identical one pressed against Will's throat.

"Hello again," Mordred growled. He had a large bump on the side of his head, and the bruise blossoming from the center was an ugly green and purple hue. He glared at Palamedes, his dark eyes filled with hatred; the look did not fade when he turned his attention to Will, his lips curving in a filthy smile. "If you get out of this alive, Shakespeare, I'll owe you pound. Technically you never answered me, but I'm a man of my word, and I'll answer the challenge in your eyes. You missed it Palamedes! Your friend and I here made a bet (well, technically I made a bet and he gave me a killer death stare, but I could see that he was betting too); I bet a pound that you'd come running. Judging by the look in his eyes, he didn't seem to agree. So if you come out of this alive, you'll be a pound richer!"

"Mordred." Annette's voice had lost its flirtatious tone. "That's quite enough. You've had your fun—plenty of it, though you ought to have picked up your toys when you were done; you know leaving them in the front yard doesn't count. Now it's my turn."

The swords didn't move, though Mordred fell silent. No command to remove the blades was forthcoming.

"Good boy. Now, Palamedes—_Pally_—isn't that what some of your friends call you?"

"Palamedes," Will snapped, a bit of life coming back into his voice (and, Palamedes hoped, into his body).

"Silence, Will. You'll have your monologue, sweetheart, I'm sure: you're Shakespeare after all. But Juliet's on the stage right now."

Flipping her red hair over her shoulder, she returned to Palamedes, an evil smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

"Do you remember when you burned my Shadowrealm, Palamedes?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember why?"

"It was vengeance for your crimes."

Annette laughed, and bent down to Will so that she was at eye level—pale eyes meeting pale eyes in a battle that only one could win.

"Do you hear that, Will? _Vengeance for my crimes_. Really." She tutted, and tapped his nose again. " My nephew…_suggested_…to the Archon that Arthur would be better off dead (Mordred being Mordred; he's always been a talker, little dear). Cernunnos agreed, and _completely on his own initiative_, killed the wise, kind old king. Now, Palamedes—loyal knight that he was—decided that Mordred hadn't come up with that idea on his own; he thought that _I _had suggested it to him, and that Mordred had suggested it to Cernunnos _on my orders_, who, obeying implied orders from _me_, killed my half-brother. With that belief in mind, he went and burned my precious Shadowrealm." Annette paused, running a finger down the bridge of Will's nose. When she spoke again, she sounded like an enraptured cat. "Oh, revenge was slow in coming. Palamedes was good. He knew to hide. But he slipped up: imagine my pleasure when I realized that Palamedes had a _friend_. A very dear friend who lived with him. A friend who was left alone very often, with only a measly mutt to protect him. Imagine my even greater pleasure, sweetheart, when I found, upon my arrival, that very same friend very alone; imagine my pleasure when I found that, his silly dog taken care of, that this friend didn't know a thing about me…that he had absolutely no idea who I was. But you know the rest, don't you, darling?"

She straightened, and her hair fluttered in the light breeze (Palamedes thought he smelled ylang ylang, coriander, chamomile, and incense) that was still seeping through the cracks around the door.

"So."

Red sparks began to crackle about her hands. Her eyes narrowed, and her slender fingers twitched in anticipation of her impending revenge.

"Palamedes, I think that _now_ is the time to settle the score. Don't you think? Right now we're at one to one; a pretty little tie."

She glanced over at her nephew, who was watching the events hungrily.

"You and darling Will had a little bet that Palamedes would come. How about we change the bet up: if I win (which is what I'm betting on), you can give me that hard won pound, Will. How does that sound?"

"Bet taken," Mordred answered for Will.

As the two Arthurian immortals chattered, taking their time, Will murmured "I'm sorry, Palamedes."

Palamedes yanked his eyes from the duo and stared at Will. "What fo—?"

The room shook with a sudden blast of yellow, lemon scented power. Mordred's swords dropped, and he, Palamedes, and Annette went flying in different directions. Palamedes slammed against the heavy doors with enough force to send them flying open, and he sprawled painfully into Winchester's central square. Voices exploded behind him, people screaming his name.

"Very funny." Annette's voice rang throughout the square.

"NO!" Palamedes yelled, scrambling to his feet. He could hear footsteps behind him, voice shouting in languages he couldn't comprehend past his fear, different scents filling his nose.

"But not funny enough. I'm not laughing."

"NO!" This time it was a scream; Palamedes couldn't find purchase on the stones, which were wet with rain. His brain was reeling, every pore in his body was throbbing with horror. Flashes of light burst past him. Slipping on the wet stones, he ran for the doors.

He knew even as he dashed forward, covering the yards with long strides and bounds, that he wasn't going to make it in time; he knew, even as he strained every muscle in his body, that he was going to be too late.

"But every joke deserves a round of applause."

The doors slammed mere seconds before he reached them; a spicy, cinnamon scented wind drew them inwards, and the last thing Palamedes saw before they locked was Annette's hair whipping around her face in a red halo.

The entire square was brightly illuminated by the blinding flash of red and yellow light.


	29. REWRITE: Chapter 14

**A/N—I don't own **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_**; it belongs, in its entirety, to Mr. Michael Scott. **

** NOTES: After much agonizing thought, I've finally decided to make one very important change to this story: readers who compare this to the original will notice that the original _Cinnamon and Lemon _features a prologue and an epilogue; these have been removed in the rewrite. I decided that Palamedes' suicide, which was the ending of the original, was too inconsistent with his character, and I found that it ruined the end of the piece. That has now been removed.**

**NOTES 2: This rewrite has brought some major changes to this piece. Besides the dropped prologue/epilogue, the piece (which originally ran at approximately 17,500 words before author's notes) now runs at approximately 22,800 words before author's notes. I have made major dialogue changes and cuts; I have also fixed a multitude of time management issues due to the characters' locations. The main plot of the story (minus the prologue/epilogue scenes) remains the same, besides these changes. **

**Many thanks to everyone who has read this, and a huge thank you to IOU1882, who has reviewed this rewrite! For the second time, I get to press the completed button on this fanfiction: amazing. **

* * *

"NO!" The scream tore itself from his lips one last time, echoing through the square, cutting through the frantic voices behind him, silencing them.

Palamedes hurled himself at the heavy doors with every bit of strength he had. They didn't move; they were locked and bolted from the inside.

"WILL! WILL!" His throat was raw. "WILL!"

Silence was the only answer to his cries.

It wasn't the answer he wanted. But it was the only answer he needed. The silence was one that he—that any immortal—knew only too well. It was the silence found in darkened rooms, where the shades were drawn and blurred figures wept into the indiscernible covers of a bed; it was the silence found in groups of black-clad people, heads bowed, blood red roses clutched in their hands, the thorns leaving pinpricks of blood upon their fingers; it was the silence found in decimated villages and battlefields, where wind was the only movement.

It was the silence of death; it was the silence that reigns when no one lives to break it.

"Will…" His voice broke as the silence whispered the horrible truth.

Pain crashed into him, leaving devastation in his wake. Tears choked him. He could feel himself shaking. A scream built in his gut, twisting his insides, churning his stomach, rising like bile in his throat. It forced its way past his lips, emerging in a strangled sob that wrenched itself free from a place in his heart that, in all the long years of his immortality, he had never known was there.

"No. No, no, no, no, no," he moaned, sounding like a wounded animal. The sound crawled across the square, breaking the silence of death, replacing it with the sound of grief—that sound that follows so swiftly upon death and destruction. Palamedes didn't know which was worse.

When the silence of death reigns, it does so for only a little while. It quickly abdicates its position, moving aside for the wails of grief and loss that stay for so much longer to echo in the spaces that death made empty. Then those cries also step away, surrendering to the quiet tears that never really leave.

"No…Will…_no_…"

He felt hands upon his shoulders, at his arms, on his back, all trying to comfort without words.

A slow pattering rain began to fall, reminding Palamedes of the night that he had lost Will for the first time. It had been the same rain—gentle, as if the whole world was crying. Then, it had mimicked the tears that Palamedes had been unable to shed; now, it was no longer true—he cried, and the rain mingled with his tears and the metallic taste of the blood still upon his hands as he buried his face in them; his mouth filled with the taste of salt, which those who have truly cried forever call the taste of sorrow.

He knelt there, in a timeless grief, unable to move (_and the hands of the other immortals disappeared, leaving him to his grief_).

He knelt there, broken, sobbing like a child into his hands (_and the other immortals were silent_).

He knelt there, with nothing but the stone steps, quiet immortals, and the cool midnight wind (_the air still filled with the heady scents of cinnamon and lemon_).


End file.
